Point Sur

my father and I
sit in the sand
of a small cove,

he breaking driftwood,
building a miniature
tee pee,

writing in the sand:
L A 300 →,
while I read

Robinson Jeffers
on the fog, stone,
hawks, and ocean.

My father stumbled twice
climbing down to the beach,
and because I am his son

I feel guilty
for his twisted ankles
and heavy breath.

He lies down and listens
to the Jeffers poems
and I wonder what he thinks.

Is this place sanctified
for him too
through the poems

or is it something else
that keeps stirring
his hands?

Today I felt
the death of a moth,
his powder in my hand,

and I wanted to take
my father’s hand but would not
as we walked back up to the road.