Headlands in a Time of War

143 Headlands in a Time of War Between the high bare hill and the fresh-mown lower pasture, through the eucalyptus stand surrounding the old barracks—now houses—the wild tom comes. He struts through a tangle of waxy leaves and house-high strips of peeling bark. He has become used to people and does not scare but gobbles and feeds before us in the morning light, his fan put away, his beard on display like a shredded black tassel of valor. Eventually, we bore him, thus he then bores us. We move on. The black-tailed deer on the far hill are small like antelope but morose, and farther down the valley a new loon, new to you and me, threads the old green lagoon with his proud head and does not scare. Poppies in patches by the roadside surprise us with their lithe tenderness, their blithe orange a harmless fire. They are the tenacious orange of a door of a house we would love to enter. The landward wind surges afternoons pushing insistently the scent of wild fennel and salt into our clothes, and it makes the warm days cold. Waves like monstrous gray mammals John Poch 144 Ecotone: reimagining place or military errors rise in the distance for seconds but never make it to shore. In the thickets of daylight, hidden in the hills, bobcats curl up like claws. Two crows terrorize a hawk. The signs say riptides, and our daughter cries because we will not let her swim, and the wind is too much. The constant wind lashes our eyes. I am carrying no wallet, no watch, no keys, but soon this will all end. ...