summer boredom, part last: the Hoh River's mouth

Our steps stretch
from entire tree
to entire tree,
sent to sea,
tumbled
and bleached
by waves and beached
amid the clatter
of driftwood elbows and ribs, sloughed in deep beds,
all chatter
beneath feet.
At last, the tent pitched in this dark,
on hard-to-find sand.
Which acre of perfect round stones
most purrs and most clacks in the laps of the tide?
And of what ground should our fire be built on the sky?
Seeing none of this, really, until morning,
the ghosts of whole forests tumbled and bleached
at our backs on the heaps.

Seaward, an ominous solid
ticks and thrums
beneath the lunar blood-thorn
sinking,
dragging again
the day's light to sea.