March 30, 2006
St. Augustine Said it Better
Behind us the tractor trailers moaned by us on the 101, their pistons pounding like courtroom gavels on fossil fuel from the opposite apex of the earth. Their headlights shined on the cliffside as they snaked along the coast. The lights cut across the erosion and fissurs of the vertical shoreline, making the malibu canyon cliffs look like the ribs of an emaciated dog.
The moonlight made the breaks in the surf show like the backlight dashboard of a luxury sedan, soft sea green like candlelight through mint jubilee . Below us the waves kept crashing in an acute angle into the rocky coast line. The asphault broke away in front of us like a fork through a cake, and the crumbs rolled away below us into the pacific ocean.
Neither of us spoke for a very long time.
Eventually, without looking away from the ocean, I spoke.
"It's amazing to imagine how long these waves have been breaking here before we were were around."
"That's funny." she replied.
"I was just sitting here thinking: it is amazing to think for how much longer these waves will be doing so after we're gone."