1200. At McClure’s Beach, Point Reys National Seashore, California - Ann Fisher-Wirth

       I would ask my family

Wait for a foggy afternoon, late May,

after a rainy winter so that all

the wildflowers are blooming on the headland.

Wait for honey of lupins. It will rise

around you, encircle you, from vast golden bushes

as you take the crooked trail

down from the parking lot. Descend

earth’s crest, sweet winding declivity

where California poppies lift up their

chalices, citrine and butterscotch,

and phlox blows in the wisps of fog, every

color of white and like the memory

of pain, and like first dawn, and lavender.

Where goldfinches, nubblins of sunlight,

flit through the canyon. Walk one by one

or in small clusters, carrying babies,

children holding your hands—with your eyes

your oval skulls, your prodigious memories

or skills with the fingers. Your skirts or shirts

will flirt with the wind, and small brown rabbits

will run in and out, you’ll see their ears first.

nested in the grasses, then the bob

of fleeting hindquarters.

Now come to the sand,

the mussel shells, broken or open, iridescent,

color of crows; wings in flight

or purple martins, and the bullwhips

of sea kelp, some like frizzy-headed voodoo

poppets, some like long hollow brown or bleached

phalluses. The X X birdprints running

across the scalloped sand will leave a trail of stars,

look at the black oystercatcher, the scamp

with the long red beak, it’s whipping along

in the courtship dance. Look at the fog,

above you now on the headland, and know how much

I love the fog. 

Don’t cry, my best beloveds,

It’s time to scatter me back now. I’ve wanted this

all my life. Look at the cormorants,

the gulls, the elegant scythed whimbrel,

do you hear its quiquiquiqui

rising above the eternal Ujjayi breath,

the roar and silence and seethe and whisper,

the immeasurable insweep and release of ocean.

(Ujjayi breathing, or "victorious breath," is a yoga technique involving a 

gentle constriction at the back of the throat (glottis) to create a soft, 

ocean-like, or Darth Vader-esque sound as you inhale and exhale 

through the nose, fostering focus, calmness, and deep diaphragmatic

 breathing during yoga or meditation. )