San Buenaventura State Beach,1968

Scrub cypress above beach dunes
Stands where it stood fifty years ago.
Then I skipped across these dunes
Barefoot, pants rolled above my knees

At high tide under a June full moon
To catch the silver flashes
Laying their eggs at water’s edge—

We buried our catch 
In the backyard to fertilize
my mother’s garden 
such an unnatural end.

Do the grunion still run?
So much has changed. I’ve lost touch
With this beach, its tide pools
The dunes, the breakwaters

I’ve seen them all before
With sharp eyes that pierced the dark.
They look out into the shifting haze
Of the incoming fog bank.