Waves break along the South Jetty at Fort Stevens State Park during king tides in December.

‘Loss of Habitat,’ by Linda Hoard

Nesting killdeer weeps its voice across the hillside,

scuffing its feigning wings. Red-tailed hawk shadows

young rabbit frozen beneath umbels of lace

Mowers stubble the meadow. For practice, firefighters

blaze the vacant house, blast it with hoses and poles

Survey crews tape, then excavators scoop

chunks of habitat into idling dump trucks.

At first a killdeer stammers around the mud, later

finds new ground for its scrap of a nest – only

scraped earth, a few speckled pebbles in dry grass

Its precocial young will quickly fluff about the field

And we, too, displaced from our own jigsaw tracts, adapt

‘The Waves,’ by Marilyn Defreese

The waves brush gently

along the sand

Each surge rolls farther

onto the land

Shore birds scavenge

and do their dance,

Then avoid the next wave

from the sea’s great expanse

Bull kelp and flotsam

punish the shore

Seagulls and plovers

bob under for more

The footprints I leave

are not timeless for me,

For when I look back

they’ve returned to the sea

‘Drains to River,’ by Lauren Mallett

and I like the idea of dropping my keys

through the grate. Never mind the ocean.

I want my keys gone. I would risk them

being swallowed. Tangled in the throes

of runoff.

Away from my coat pocket

and moving farther as I stand here,

looking down at the stenciled warning

“No Dumping” and yet that’s just what

I would do. Expanse by way of manhole,

uncovered and recovered in silt.

Those rooms they open, one key

per one door. How I’ve sorted them

onto different rings – car, work, home

The chain has worn the cloth patterns

of my lanyard: polka dots fray,

striped edges curl away from their hem

‘Butterfly Mindfulness,’ by Andrew Puzauskas

As the wind blows

So the butterfly goes

Sometimes directly to the flower,

Or else in a circular round about way

It goes zig-zagging about

Pushed and tossed here and there

It seems to be helpless and yet

Always reaches the swaying target

Where it sits now and clings

Slower now its wings are

Still opening and closing then

Vertically folding upright and

Resting now quite still

It’s only focus is upon

The sweetness of the nectar…