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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