Three Poems by Jennifer Lagier

 

Afternoon Light 

 

Silver fog banks, opalescent rainclouds 

smolder in afternoon sky. 

Furtive sunlight leaks 

through gaps in lavender thunderheads. 

Platinum refractions streak cobalt bay, 

illuminate cypress limbs. 

 

Sandpipers, sea gulls scatter 

as I wander Del Monte Beach. 

Crunchy kelp bulbs 

dissipate existential anxiety. 

I exhale, release fear  

into a circling murder of crows. 

 

Blue herons, terns stride low tide line. 

Muddled firmament spills 

a congregation of egrets. 

Bird-borne serenity comforts my soul. 

 

 

 

 

Wave Watching Zen 

 

Lace scalloped surf rolls lazily inland, 

sluices over purple urchins, green anemones,  

volcanic stone beach. 

Morning sun slides across denim sky, 

illuminates fissured headland, 

Fiscalini Ranch boardwalk, 

lupine embellished vertical trails. 

 

Pelican chevrons strafe wave tops, 

sail along broken coastline. 

Brash gulls ignore foraging blackbirds, 

feed upon washed ashore crabs. 

Deer unfold toothpick legs,  

emerge from shadows, 

promenade along gravel streets. 

 

Little dogs nap while I sit 

at varnished teak desk, scribble, 

sip hot coffee, nibble chilled melon, 

unclench and spiritually restore 

as I inhale salty sea breeze. 

 

 

 

 

Despite Gray Horizon 

 

Precise strings of pelicans 

trailed by disorganized sea gulls 

slide across shore fog scrim, 

vanish beyond Moonstone Beach. 

Our dogs snooze on the sofa, 

absorb warmth from morning’s fire. 

 

I settle in breakfast nook, 

admire an explosion of sea lavender, 

pink-flowered hottentot fig, 

watch a white egret plucking fish 

from miniscule tide pools. 

 

Blackbirds hector a soaring hawk. 

Ground squirrels poke their heads  

outside underground burrows. 

Slap and whoosh of turning tide 

punctuates stony coastline. 

 

Wind-blown serenity instigates spindrift, 

nourishes my hungry soul. 

I give thanks for yellow fiddleneck shoals, 

shaggy blue lupine mounds,  

golden brackets of poppies.

Jennifer Lagier lives a block from the stage where Bob Dylan performed with Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar during the Monterey Pop Festival. She edits the Monterey Review and helps publicize Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium reading series events. Jennifer has published twenty-five books, most recently Postcards from Paradise (Blue Light Press), Illuminations (Kelsay Books), Reelin’ In the Years (Cyberwit), When You Don’t See It (Kelsay Books).

Website: jlagier.net

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/