Cannon Beach

By Diane Wakoski

One morning of early morning sunshine, like a perfect rose frozen
into an ice cube,
made us so grateful, we then loved the mist
which rolled in and blanketed us for days.
When the sun shone, we walked
the beach at dawn
while most people slept, but on the foggy mornings,
we slept too, not even hearing the horns
sounding from the rocks. Two thousand miles away,
I can only pretend to see the Pacific Ocean
no matter how early I rise.
The mist that steams up from this autumn ground
over pumpkins, the dried dinner-plate sunflowers
with bowed heads, the final red tomatoes on the browning
vines, a different beauty. It is as if everyone
in Cannon Beach is sleeping,
while I'm awake, while everyone, everywhere,
different from this landscape, sleeping,
only I awake, not knowing the images in each head;
as we all sleep through each others' lives.

Only a few even try to imagine
what others simultaneously try to perceive,
and then know its futility. An act of faith
lets me believe the Pacific Ocean's still there,
since I now can't see it. That the sun exists,
though the fog entirely covers it today. That in my
sleep I do not lose my identity, or in death,
pass beyond what I now know I am.