Cirrus-Pelican

Arriving at the beach this morning all seems to be predictably in place — low tide, small arrowheads left on edges of little bays along the water line of the larger bay, small cliff tendencies to the northern side of each — small swell, a sandbar with gentle rip to its side — green shoreline water stretching off to deeper blue beyond — cirrus above and to the west, alto scattered — mostly to the south — wind cool to cold from the southeast — a juvenile gull wings past.

And then I watch, in western skies over water, what seems at first the usual flapping of seagull or tern — one good tern deserves another, after all — but then I notice the slower flapping, the more laborious movements, the longer glides, the bigger frame and bulk, and know then the bird for what it is — the pelican — heading south from who knows where or how long — and I assume he’s heading back to a limestone perch by the river maybe, but then he turns back west then north, and starts to circle higher and higher, reaching for the cirrus, until I turn away briefly, then turn back, and cannot find him any longer, dissolved into the long lines of snaking cloudy wisps, slowly moving in long streaks over the earth, higher and higher.