This is a simple piece of writing<\/p>\n
promulgating a simple,<\/p>\n
obvious known message.<\/p>\n
There are no unknowns in it.<\/p>\n
Know that!<\/p>\n
I went to South Jetty<\/p>\n
on the Columbia River,<\/p>\n
formerly a river<\/p>\n
of the vast unknown,<\/p>\n
now officially known,<\/p>\n
dammed, diked, dredged,<\/p>\n
to take the unknown out of it.<\/p>\n
I went to see<\/p>\n
the aftermath<\/p>\n
of the King Tide,<\/p>\n
a tide known<\/p>\n
by all the predictors<\/p>\n
of tide-knowing things,<\/p>\n
the King Tide<\/p>\n
that swept a man<\/p>\n
to his death<\/p>\n
north of Depoe Bay<\/p>\n
because he knew<\/p>\n
it wasn’t going<\/p>\n
to happen to him.<\/p>\n
He knew not.<\/p>\n
Did you know<\/p>\n
that in pre-colonial America,<\/p>\n
the verb \u201cto know<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n
meant to know someone<\/p>\n
through carnal knowledge?<\/p>\n
\u201cI have known<\/i> you sir,\u201d<\/p>\n
Abigal said to John Proctor,<\/p>\n
\u201cyou sweated like a stallion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is that the way to know<\/i> someone?<\/p>\n
Should you know them before you know<\/i> them?<\/p>\n
Does a hashtag# of knowing<\/p>\n
know anything?<\/p>\n
Stand on this jetty<\/p>\n
during a King Tide<\/p>\n
and you might know something<\/p>\n
and that something<\/p>\n
might be that<\/p>\n
you know<\/p>\n
nothing at all.<\/p>\n
On the way to the jetty,<\/p>\n
I listened to sports talk<\/p>\n
on the radio<\/p>\n
and the jock said<\/p>\n
the consistency of<\/p>\n
Starbucks,<\/p>\n
Uber,<\/p>\n
and McDonald’s<\/p>\n
is what the world<\/p>\n
truly wants.<\/p>\n
Nobody wants the unknown.<\/p>\n
At the jetty,<\/p>\n
a bald eagle pirouetted<\/p>\n
above the rocks,<\/p>\n
bringing to mind<\/p>\n
the immortal Rolling Stones<\/p>\n
line from \u201cRocks Off,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe always comes when she pirouettes on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
That juxtaposition was unknown to me.<\/p>\n
I picked up a piece of driftwood<\/p>\n
to do my arm curls.<\/p>\n
I curled…<\/p>\n
20, 30, 40. 50.<\/p>\n
I was pumping wood<\/p>\n
with the bald eagle<\/p>\n
dancing overhead<\/p>\n
as my trainer.<\/p>\n
That fitness regime<\/p>\n
was unknown to me.<\/p>\n
A sneaker wave snuck ashore<\/p>\n
and blasted the jetty.<\/p>\n
It sent up a wild spray<\/p>\n
that drenched me<\/p>\n
all the way down<\/p>\n
to my corduroys.<\/p>\n
I tasted salt<\/p>\n
on my sea level<\/p>\n
mountain man beard.<\/p>\n
That taste was unknown to me,<\/p>\n
specks of salt on corduroys, too.<\/p>\n
There is only one known thing,<\/p>\n
that one thing.<\/p>\n
Do you know<\/p>\n
what that is?<\/p>\n
(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[195,580,579,578,581,13,553,190,421,577,243],"class_list":["post-3567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","tag-bald-eagle","tag-coastal-poem","tag-jetty","tag-jetty-poem","tag-king-tide","tag-oregon-coast","tag-oregon-poem","tag-oregon-poetry","tag-poem","tag-rocks-off","tag-south-jetty","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\/3567","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=3567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3569,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3567\/revisions\/3569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}