Trouble in Mind

I walk down the beach and find a flat spot
between the driftwood and tufts of beach grass,
a good place to escape the frictions and nagging
irritations of life, the placid ocean

is three shades of green today, and foggy grays
that reach up and merge with the sky, wave tails
slide up the beach, seven sanderling skitter along,
pick, picking at the sand like pestering three-year olds.

Four miles down the Pacific Plate is rubbing
the North American Plate the wrong way,
and the Juan de Fuca Plate is push, pushing.
North America has no place to go, no walk in the trees,

no tavern with a stool and a beer, no quiet beach
with sliding waves and picking sanderling.
North America double kicks Pacific in the ribs,
Pacific shoves along holding its prickly side,

making achy noises. North America jumps up
and Juan de Fuca slides twenty-three feet under,
flat on its face, North America stomps back down
on Juan de Fuca’s neck in violent rock-melting rage

that troubles the placid ocean and sends the sanderling flying off.
North America stomps around until the fury subsides,
the sanderling find new picking grounds, the ocean quiets,
North America and I settle back with trouble in our thinkers.