Change I Really Don't Want to Talk About

Twenty-eight years ago when we first visited the Northern California coastline above Ft. Bragg, shore life was abundant. Seagulls held vast conventions on selected spans of sand and hovered over fish teeming in frothy waters. Seals bobbed in the waves. Ecoskeletons of tiny crabs littered the seaside as well as seaweed and kelp, opened mussels, and partially eaten octopus and fish remains. Any visit was lively with sounds and calls and wind.

Yesterday we drove with friends to see the shore, and I was reminded of a poem I wrote in 1983 about changes.

I walk along the sandy beach
Watching the break of the waves
Crashing them creeping upon the shore
Returning to watery graves.

You see, the seagulls were few and far between, and, in the course of an hour, we saw five pelicans pass overhead. There was no oily glaze to the waters, but the sand, once white, was gray on top and blackened and sticky underneath. People were net fishing in one cove, but the usual display of birds announcing the presence of the three inch long surf fish (or schmelts as I have called them) was absent.

The changes are upon us, and it doesn't take an oil spill to spoil what nature gave us. We've done it already by ships dumping their waste far out in the waters. We've done it by leaking civilization sewage off shore and downright funneling it into the ocean in huge pipes. Pesticides used on crops and lawns have found their way to the sea. Over fishing has done its part, along with society's attitude of taking more than it needs and wasting the rest.

The ocean's had enough, that's for sure, otherwise there would be more visible life forms still dipping and playing in the summer air. More seagulls, other birds, and animals inhabit dumps these days than they do the seashore.

Are we past the point of no return? I can only hope we're not, but I have a suspicion humankind has pushed itself close to the edge of its existence on this Earthy plane. The silent shore is but one sign of the future.