Goat Rock Sestina by Jim Wilson

Goat Rock Sestina

I like to walk on the beach by the sea
Along the coast of Sonoma County
I enjoy feeling the give of the sand
Where the continent ends, gives up on land,
Watching the ebbing and flowing of waves,
Feeling the flow of the wind in my hand.

I can remember walking hand in hand
On a summer afternoon by the sea
As dreams of the future rolled in like waves
Along the coast of Sonoma County
The wind has carved strange-shaped cliffs from the land,
The wind steadily shifts the shore-side sand.

The wind slowly turns the cliffs into sand,
Like yesterdays dissolving in one's hand,
Streams that change course from an earthquake on land,
Displaced landscapes from tsunami tossed seas,
Along the coast of Sonoma County
The lunar tides and the sound of the waves.

The last time I saw you I paused to wave,
The way I sometimes will pause on the sand
Along the coast of Sonoma County
A friend of mine needed a helping hand
With the great catch he retrieved from the sea
A long way from the sight of steady land.

Some things feel firm, they feel like steady land;
We can't see that mountains are tides and waves,
That granite cliffs ebb and flow like the sea,
That even a diamond will become sand,
Like the grains that flow through visitors' hands
Along the coast of Sonoma County.

Along the coast of Sonoma County
Where sky, cliff, and stream, where ocean and land
Meet each other like two friends clasping hands,
The sound of the wind, the sound of the waves,
The shifting of clouds, the shifting of sand,
The grand full moon's light brightens the vast sea.

By the seacoast of Sonoma County
The sand is all that is left of the land --
I wave at a whale with my raised right hand.