We're not in Colorado Anymore

My former home of Colorado is a world away, and I'm surrounded by strangeness at the ocean's edge.

When I run the beach before the sun comes up, the moon and stars reflect from shiny jellyfish scattered across the sand. Fog shrouds headlands and wraps around sea stacks. Surf pounds the shore. Trails climb past sand dunes toward cliffs, winding among sitka spruce that rise from rotting logs. Roosevelt elk of colossal size crash through salal jungles, and rough-skinned newts walk the floors of ferny rainforests. Sunlight slants through mist. Ocean winds wash across the land in fragrant waves of pine and salt.

When I climb down from forest to shore, anemones extend their tentacles in tidepools. I kneel in sand beneath the stars. In my cupped hands I hold seawater teeming with lifeforms in uncountable numbers.