The salty wind wraps me in its arms
Making my nose an icicle
And my lips the cerulean sky
Every so often speckled
with clusters of chapped skin
I grin,
welcoming the cold with open arms
Breathing in the briny air
And dig my toes into the
Warm, obsidian black sands
Sliding down hills
And plummeting into the beach
My friend and I jump into the inky grains
Make sand angels
And search for treasure:
shells,
driftwood,
and
pebbles
That have been rounded by the waves
For unknowable years
Only to have been washed ashore
And stuffed into the pockets of
Pirates
After collecting our riches,
We decide to climb the pink and green
majestic mountain
Above the beach
And search for little critters
Our eyes light up as we find
a tiger moth caterpillar
Awaiting us on a leaf
Orange, black, and white
Its pricks look like feathers
We giggle as it climbs onto our hand
And squirms around, tickling our palm
Next, we stumble upon a
California Red-legged Frog
And marvel at its ruby and brown skin
Dotted with black spots
Like a ripe strawberry
It's the primary snack
for the endangered
San Francisco garter snake
It glitters in the sunlight
A plump garnet
Finally, tired, we sit down on
the craggy rocks of the mountain
And watch the sea roll
Back and forth
Back and forth
The waves ombre:
From sapphire to indigo
Seagulls dot the horizon
The sun begins to sink
Its last rays of warmth
Casting the clouds
orange, pink, red, and purple
In candy colors
A peregrine falcon calls in the distance
With our telescope, we zoom in
She's standing regally on the cliff
Feathers ruffled, eyes like hard cut gems
Looking for prey
Surely empyrean
As the falcon takes off and disappears
We continue to watch the sea
Killdeer plovers rush in and out of the waves
As if taunting it to come to get them
Yet it never does
Killdeer
The last of the birds I shall see today
It makes me laugh that it has such
An ironic name
For it never hurts anyone
Suddenly
A crash
I gasp
Something breaks the surface for
One second
A huge tail is launched into the air
Its color like storm clouds
And the depths of the Pacific
Splash
It's gone
Silence
We look at each other, then smile and sit back
Listening to the waves
And thinking of all the things
We did and saw.