Rollers

We raced a loop of time to the coast.
The stove cooled. Sarah
Sipped tea in the pillowy rocker.
The cabin fridge came back on,
Grumbling. The whole nation
Played musical time zones,
Which the tides of course ignored.
The cliff birds started morning-song.
The breakers undercutting the cliff
We'd perched on for two quick nights
Returned and returned. I kept
Coming back all night and dawn
To this verse again and again,
Eating away bits, adding bits
In a fog, making it worse. I thought
About what May Swenson
And Marianne Moore and Robinson
Jeffers wrote about ocean coasts,
Around and around, hinting
And haunting perpetually.
The waves drowned out the sound
Of me thinking through them to the sea.