Catalina by Michael Evans
There is a science of small things in tidepools. There is music. Neither explains what started this symphony—the ebb or the flow. By the stony aquarium, I note the rests and the beats while my classmates narrate the scene like a musical, set in an outdoor classroom. They count the maestro crabs, plodding seastars, and percussionist sea anemones. It doesn’t add up. Two soaring hydrogens harmonized with an oxygen and lowered it to earth. Trio multiplied to myriad voices. The rhythms between waves carried these creatures here and willed the soprano seagulls to float on the wind. I wonder who first sang lyrics onto this shore, and whether they know if I first chose my parents or they me, a choirboy hidden deep in the tenors, a diver afraid of the shallows, a student questioning every worksheet, but rarely raising my hand. Agnostic at eleven, I won’t ask what no one knows. I know only a lone birch on a hill, bending away from the island shore in the wind, toothy spade-leaves fluttering like butterflies, and bark coming loose like a snake skin. I peel long strips like the flowing musical staffs we sing to proud parents in the auditorium. You’re ruining it says Dad says Mom says the teacher. I want to erase the mistake, put the paper back on, put my hand back down. To not ask when the swell comes to refill the pool. Or when the boat comes to return us to school. I want to ride the Escondido horses wild, thumping out the dawn baseline. Listen for the tides that pool us together. There’s a lyrical sea beyond these hills and woodlands. The sun flashes blue-green under the imagined horizon line. I dive into the surf, swallow saltwater, let the tides ferry me to sea.
Author's Note:
Moments that permeate my inner being usually involve a long pause in one place. Though museums inundate my senses, I often share space with one piece, forgoing the galleries. Though I don't hike enough, my favorite is through Eaton Canyon, still closed after the LA wildfires last year. Just off trail, an old tree offers a low branch protruding horizontally. The bare wood is polished by the resting rear ends of countless hikers. There I listen and look and feel, allowing thoughts to pass, leaving me present with the old host, who I hope has survived, if a bit charred.
Michael R. Evans is a poet and flash writer who was raised in Upstate New York on a hill overlooking a river confluence. He has now lived half his life in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in Stanchion Elegant Variations, NFFD-UK Write-in, Wild Greens, Soul Poetry, and ONE ART. @mrevanspoetry.bsky.social
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