Unknown at the Jetty

This is a simple piece of writing

promulgating a simple,

obvious known message.

There are no unknowns in it.

Know that!

I went to South Jetty

on the Columbia River,

formerly a river

of the vast unknown,

now officially known,

dammed, diked, dredged,

to take the unknown out of it.

I went to see

the aftermath

of the King Tide,

a tide known

by all the predictors

of tide-knowing things,

the King Tide

that swept a man

to his death

north of Depoe Bay

because he knew

it wasn’t going

to happen to him.

He knew not.

Did you know

that in pre-colonial America,

the verb “to know

meant to know someone

through carnal knowledge?

“I have known you sir,”

Abigal said to John Proctor,

“you sweated like a stallion.”

Is that the way to know someone?

Should you know them before you know them?

Does a hashtag# of knowing

know anything?

Stand on this jetty

during a King Tide

and you might know something

and that something

might be that

you know

nothing at all.

On the way to the jetty,

I listened to sports talk

on the radio

and the jock said

the consistency of

Starbucks,

Uber,

and McDonald’s

is what the world

truly wants.

Nobody wants the unknown.

At the jetty,

a bald eagle pirouetted

above the rocks,

bringing to mind

the immortal Rolling Stones

line from “Rocks Off,”

“She always comes when she pirouettes on me.”

That juxtaposition was unknown to me.

I picked up a piece of driftwood

to do my arm curls.

I curled…

20, 30, 40. 50.

I was pumping wood

with the bald eagle

dancing overhead

as my trainer.

That fitness regime

was unknown to me.

A sneaker wave snuck ashore

and blasted the jetty.

It sent up a wild spray

that drenched me

all the way down

to my corduroys.

I tasted salt

on my sea level

mountain man beard.

That taste was unknown to me,

specks of salt on corduroys, too.

There is only one known thing,

that one thing.

Do you know

what that is?

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