The clapping blackness of the wings of pointed cormorants, <br />the great indolent planes <br />Of autumn pelicans nine or a dozen strung shorelong, <br />But chiefly the gulls, the cloud-caligraphers of windy spirals <br />before a storm, <br />Cruise north and south over the sea-rocks and over <br />That bluish enormous opal; very lately these alone, these and the <br />clouds <br />And westering lights of heaven, crossed it; but then <br />A hull with standing canvas crept about Point Lobos . . . now <br />all day long the steamers <br />Smudge the opal's rim; often a seaplane troubles <br />The sea-wind with its throbbing heart. These will increase, the <br />others diminish; and later <br />These will diminish; our Pacific has pastured <br />The Mediterranean torch and passed it west across the fountains <br />of the morning; <br />And the following desolation that feeds on Crete <br />Feed here; the clapping blackness of the wings of pointed cormorants, <br />the great sails <br />Of autumn pelicans, the gray sea-going gulls, <br />Alone will streak the enormous opal, the earth have peace like the <br />broad water, our blood's <br />Unrest have doubled to Asia and be peopling <br />Europe again, or dropping colonies at the morning star: what <br />moody traveler <br />Wanders back here, watches the sea-fowl circle <br />The old sea-granite and cemented granite with one regard, and <br />greets my ghost, <br />One temper with the granite, bulking about here?<br /><br />Robinson Jeffers<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-cycle-19/
