On the Olympic Peninsula
Travelling a trail through
fantastical forest giants,
I marvel at one smaller tree,
a pair of hands reaching
bony fingers to the sky.
I continue past ancient
bearded behemoths until
I reach the ocean where
enormous piles of driftwood
divide the trees and sand.
Picking a path through
the bleached lumber,
I feel I have stumbled upon
the secret neritic necropolis
of a mythic pelagic beast.
I scramble over a final giant
wooden femur to reach the beach.
I trudge through tan sand,
as waves wash up, carving
curves of white foam
under a leaden sky.
The beach is bracketed
by craggy crumbling cliffs
cascading into the sea.
A natural bridge catches my eye
and leads it out into the swell
where a series of vertical rock
columns break the surface,
heads of a family of sea serpents
slowly swimming away into
the distant mist to the west....