I took the old husky<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was probably our last romp<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of 10,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ten thousand!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rain ripped through Astoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love rain; not this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The beach was different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fresh erosion sheared the dunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019d have to climb down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wasn\u2019t sure she\u2019d make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Erosion is like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Erode\u2014to erode\u2014an action verb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sonny eroded the coarse, uncaring<\/p>\n\n\n\n
contours of my heart in our 17 years together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We made our way south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Huge piles of kelp looked<\/p>\n\n\n\n
like dead kraken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One might be the last one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A rainbow appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seeped through the gray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They write poems about these moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sonny ate up the sand with gusto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was gusto in my grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I stopped at a convenience store in Warrenton,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
for wine or coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was still reeling from the Christmas rainbow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A student of mine was eating a convenience-store burrito<\/p>\n\n\n\n
for breakfast with his mother and sister on Christmas morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wished him a \u201cMerry Christmas!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He wouldn\u2019t look at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I put my hand on his shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He didn\u2019t introduce me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He gave a funny laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To our left, an old man played<\/p>\n\n\n\n
blues on harmonica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He played the blues,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had the blues,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
my student lived the blues,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and Sonny was named for a great bluesman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I took the old husky to the beach. It was probably our last romp of 10,000. Ten thousand! Rain ripped through Astoria. I love rain; not this time. The beach was different. Fresh erosion sheared the dunes. We\u2019d have to climb down. I wasn\u2019t sure she\u2019d make it. Erosion is like that. Erode\u2014to erode\u2014an action […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,5,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astoria","category-meditations","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10093,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091\/revisions\/10093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}