Thomas Festa

The rugged coast gives off the aura of going on forever. Stone and ocean prolong the fatal sense, that sudden intake of breadth from the verge. Jagged rocks gnash whorls of whitewater, yet the relentless surge toward calamity sooner or later gives way to the great Pacific calm. The companionable beauty of the continent’s end, of having reached the end of something. Redwoods stand watch up to the promontory’s edge. Gray whales breach in view of shore. The cliff drops off and, for a spell, you find that you yourself have become the tidefall rushing toward the ocean.

burn scar
on coastal slopes a flash flood
of memories