There’s Maui, our pilot points jokingly across the Pacific
Who needs Maui on a day like this
after weeks of rain and the longest winter
when the northern sun finally, finally reaches us
A day warm enough for porches and puttering
around spaces abruptly returned from the snow
baseball games and rusty bike rides better under blue skies
How about the school year ends today
Summer’s happening, even if spring never did
The plane’s shadow trails us
over grey whales and black swirls of herring
we land on the same beach
where years ago my dad’s Piper flipped in the wind,
my brother upside down next to him
Even after years and years of flying here,
I stay in amazement, the pilot says. And it sounds
like the answer to everything
He digs razor clams while we wander past
their open shells like a kid’s drawing of purple butterflies
We find bear tracks on white sand, white antlers in driftwood
orange buoys, sun-glazed bottles, yellow floats
What a mess people make of things
What a beautiful mess
What a feeling of smallness and wholeness
wild places offer
filling us,
like grief,
almost to drowning
with love
