San Francisco — Looking Seaward from Lands End

View from Lands End Lookout — Cool Windy Day in Spring.

San Francisco’s 6th Poet Laureate declared:
“Everyone is a poet — until proven otherwise.”

Parked at Lands End Lookout

Hoody’s and sweatshirts from
Fisherman’s Wharf
Run by my car

At the edge they look homeward
Then, shivering in the cold wind,
They turn and form a scrum of smiles
Picture taken, they retreat to their bus

Me with my sandwich and coffee
Looking West and thinking about
Fukushima Dai-ichi— as I watch
The in-coming tide wash Seal Rocks

Treasure Island in the Bay was my home
My ship sailed through the Gate
On the tide, bound for Yokohama
Nagasaki and Hiroshima were Off Limits
Too hot to visit in 1954

A teenage warrior-tourist,
I held my sailor’s White Hat against the wind
I was Looking West from Lands End,
But Sutro’s Gothic Bathhouse blocked the view.
—Carto, 2014