The Basin


Between moon measured hours of ebb 
    and flood, in borrowed kayaks we put in 

at the basin, launch our ritual last gasp 
    of seasonal spying. Rumors of thirty yesterday 

morning, our pulses speeding, the sirens singing
    The seals are coming, the seals are coming.    

Perhaps we’ve been here forever, gone
    current blind. Summer pioneers surrounded 

by ocean, we risk capsizing for mercurial glimpses
    of these saltwater yogis, voluntary breathers, 

their Buddah heads broad as a bear's 
    to surface, consider, dive, and disappear 

singly, in pairs, in threesomes or foursomes fleeting 
    as island hallucinations. Our backs cranky, hands

paddled raw as sashimi, minds soft from surviving
    on white bread, peanut butter and jelly, we lose 

track of land and time. Mirages navigate turn- 
    and counter-turn, backward and forward 

motion. Fooled again by a flight of 
    cormorants air drying, all shag dialogue

and witchy wingspan, flotsam driftwood  
     hangout. Another fleet of bobbing black 

lobster buoys. More blurred granite outcroppings. 
    Umber beds of seaweed. Cascades of tangled 

netting. If we had their vibrating whiskers 
    instead of binoculars, we could sniff their 

temporary retreat before the falls reverse
    direction and the basin begins to empty. Lookout!

Terns dive bombing. Osprey air strikes. Even 
    a great blue heron lopes into action, eyeing 

the signs from a distant fir. The herring 
    must be running. Baitfish. Crabs. Lunch. 

At slack tide, sleek as monks, the shiny 
    fur slide awakens on the big rock. Over there. 

Two o'clock. We hear each seal exhale 
    back into the atmosphere enough excess 

air to fill a sail. Oxygen stored deep in their 
    blood, we feel our own human heart rates 

dissipate with theirs from 120 to 40 beats 
    per minute. We grow flippers in the shadows. 

Become buoyant. Flop and sun with them, one
    blubber-happy family. Cells muted, cameras 

off, to prove to our new warm-blooded friends
    we're not the enemy, we roll with them 

in tandem. They speak the ancient 
    language of ort. There's an art to it 

as they disperse yet seem to swim toward us. 
    We've come in peace. We may never go home.