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Maritime Museum

God made an exception for us: the weather was ideal.
I kept thinking about Lewis and Clark, and their description
of the weather, there where the Columbia River
does a futile battle with Poseidon. The sea will swallow
the river, and all the rivers, but not before punishing them
for having left home. There is a reason for moss.

The Museum itself is magnificent!
It is an example of what can be done
when we invest in each other,
and in each other's well-being.
Astoria is a small town, but an historic one.
It deserves--we deserve--such a maritime museum
where history, the sea, and the rivers still meet.

Daniel learned to tie a bowline, just steps from where
a coast guard boat stood up on a wave, as if slugged
by the sea, something like the river itself.
Fine, old, wooden seiners made art of shrewd design.
The lighthouse ship at the pier neglected art entirely
on behalf of survival and brutal functionality.

The bridge across the Columbia was spidery
in its reach and tenacity. Old pilings
on the shallow flats refused to let go.

We had lunch at an improbable British seafood restaurant,
on an open-air patio protected by thick glass.

History has its sunny moments.

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