The beach at Salmon Creek on the Sonoma County coast is one of the most spectacular and awe inspiring stretches of sand that I’ve ever set foot upon. My wife and I love this place. We recently spent an afternoon there, it was one of those warm and golden blue-sky winter days that make you glad to be alive. The otherworldly and dreamlike nature of Salmon Creek is similar to being on psychedelics without actually having to take the drugs (we did, however, smoke a bit of cannabis, just to give the day a little extra glow.)

The narrative form often fails me when I attempt to write about a day such as this, so I’ve chosen haiku instead. Our day was filled with these magical vignettes and that is what each of these poems represent. Enjoy.

• Three deer
• Still as sentinels
• Melt into dune grass

• Azure sky
• White with brushstrokes
• Cirrus and vapor trails

• Wave after wave
• Rolls from the sea
• Eternity

• Tiny footprints
• Random, delicate trails
• Woven through sand

• Bleached bones of driftwood
• Strewn like jack straws
• Up and down the beach

• Osprey descends
• Wings swept back
• Talons strike

• Four whale spouts
• Tiny puffs of smoke
• Timeless ocean dance

In an upstairs widow in our home hangs a crystal. This crystal is a multi-faceted orb about half the size of a ping pong ball, shaped like a fat raindrop and coming to a slight point at the bottom. A thin filament runs through the top of this crystal. There are fourteen beads of various shapes, sizes and colors strung through each side of the filament so what you see is a perfect bead-covered V terminating in the crystal. These beads were given to my wife Carol by her friends eighteen years ago at her baby shower.

There are four small southeast facing windows about head high on one side of this room. The window on the far left is the first one that catches direct sunlight so that’s where we’ve hung the crystal. The rising sun only shines through this window at certain times during the year on clear, cloudless mornings. When the first rays of sun hit the crystal, the walls are instantly covered with a multitude of tiny brilliant rainbows. Give the crystal a spin and the rainbows dance, dip and dive around the room. This is a fleeting show as the rainbows only last as long as the sun shines through the window. This crystal holds a special place in the ongoing history of our family.

When our now seventeen year old twins were babies they shared a room. This room is downstairs, it’s one window faces west. Back then it was the setting sun that created the dancing rainbow effect. Carol and I would spin the crystal again and again as our babies lay in their cribs, mesmerized by the dazzling dance that we were creating. Judging by their wide-eyed wonder, to them this was pure magic. I understand the science behind prisms but still find it magical the way prisms and light create rainbows.

Now I go through life as a former child. I try every day to view the world through the prism of childhood, looking for magic and wonder wherever I can find it.

(The “dancing crystal” effect inspired me to write this song, it appears on my cd Late Bloomer. Give it a listen.)