Corona Hopelings, Morro Bay, CA
by Jeanie Greenfelder
Birds reclaim their beach,
lounge in the sun or set up
umbrellas for shade. Some
picnic, others watch waves.
In truth, on this cloudy morning,
one gull almost hits me with a clam
as he flies and drops it over and over
until it cracks. Then he gorges.
Only two cyclists and one surfer
dot the distant shoreline as
Harbor Patrol trucks watch for
people too close to one another.
And me, I’m with willets,
terns, godwits, and gulls.
Free from germ concerns,
I inhale birdsong.
Previously published in Bracken, 2020
PHOTO: Morro Bay, California, with Morrow Rock in the background. Photo by roy zeigerman on Unsplash
NOTE: Morro Bay is an incorporated waterfront city in San Luis Obispo County, California, on the state’s Central Coast. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,234. The town’s most striking feature is Morro Rock, a 576 foot high volcanic plug at the entrance to the harbor that in 1968 was designated a Historical Landmark. The area around the base of Morro Rock is open to visitors, with parking lots and paths. Climbing the rock is prohibited except with a permit, due to risk of injury and because it is a peregrine falcon reserve. Morro Rock is one in a series of similar plugs that stretch in a line inland called the Nine Sisters.
PHOTO: Dawn at Morro Bay, California (November 2011). Photo by Fred Moore, used by permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeanie Greenfelder’s poems have been published at American Life in Poetry and Writers’ Almanac; in anthologies: Paris, Etc., Pushing the Envelope: Epistolary Poems; and in journals: Miramar, Thema, Askew, Persimmon Tree, and others. The San Luis Obispo County poet laureate, 2017,2018, Jeanie’s books are: Biting the Apple, Marriage and Other Leaps of Faith, and I Got What I Came For. To read more of her poems, visit jeaniegreensfelder.com.
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