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Drive California 1 to Ragged Point

and rent a room with a balcony view

of the large lone rock, sea-locked and scoured white,

then watch as the cold waves strain to reduce

it to molecules. But it will hold stead,

despite the harsh breakers ceaseless attack,

and seem almost safe as a child in bed

swathed in a blue crazy quilt to the neck.

What you will take when you turn in your key

and return on the twisting coastal road

won’t be the begging black bird’s hungry plea

or the stoned clerk’s shorting you change you’re owed

but that rugged turret of undressed stone

that weathers the worst yet is so at home.