A visit to a sleepy boardwalk town, Elfin Cove
On a near-tropical Alaska summer day
With fishing boats and sunflower sea stars,
And white fringed nudibranchs on kelp fronds under the dock
A poignant glacial tongue lapping at the indigo waters of Icy Strait
Emerges out of the dreamy Fairweather Mountains
Anchors a-weigh and a short cruise to a granite cove
on an isle looking out to the Gulf of Alaska
A barbecue picnic lunch on a remote crescent beach
Beach chairs and drift log seats
Colorful kayaks in a line
A rising tide
Two hearty souls go for a swim
Hikes through rainforest to the other side
Up and over wandering forested hills, down gulches
Sweeping panoramic views across to Cape Spencer Light
Banana slugs, fungus and eagle feathers on the mossy carpet floor
And flowering asters, dwarf dogwood,
shy maidens, and old man's beard lichen
A rusted intact World War II artillery gun
Aims timelessly across Cross Sound
A young sea otter, utterly unafraid
Scrapes rocky walls for barnacles, rolling and scrambling in theshallows,
Incredibly approaching our kayaks,
An irony in that otters were hunted to near extinction from kayaks
Never to forget today's ceaseless sun and emblazoned blue sky
A world made from storms under a picturesque day
Forests of rain and glaciers from mountains of snow
Eagles eternally wheel against the blue backdrop
The Sea Bird makes way once more
Through narrow South Inian Pass
Past sleepy breathy humpbacks,
The occasional otter and itinerant hummingbird
Umbrella-handled cormorants face into cliff faces
Common murres and black-headed Bonaparte's gulls
Snatch meals from stirred currents and dancing waters
A raft of otters float on their backs, preening and sculling
Further down Icy Strait
Out of nowhere emerge beautiful black and white beings
Of thorny fins and misty fountains,
A tribe of orcas traveling with us
Passing under the bow
Mothers with exuberant calves
And yet more serendipity
Later in the bright evening
As other killer whales appear to us
Spread out surfacing, traveling down the channel
And incredibly ahead is a splash-happy leviathan --
A humpback whale engaging a full repertoire of behavior
Slap after slap of its pectoral fins
And repeated full-body breaches
And orcas all about
It's Whale Soup after dinner
One hardly knows where to look
Nor how to absorb all the experiences small and great
Under today's bright Alaskan sun.
