1. Dedication

To friends on the far marge, and the memory of Herman Melville.

2. Historical voyage

Harkening to the whisper of the sea wind in the rigging of his Berkshire cabin, Herman seized his quill, scrunched his watery-blue trippy oceanic eyes, put the tip of his beard in his mouth and wrote: "Woe to him that seeks to please rather than to appall!" over and over he wrote down one piece of foolscap right after another.

Alas, Herman might as well have saved his ink, for the previous year the first nugget had been found in California, the first great rushes had been speeding through hearts and minds across the land, and Herman's malediction was even then being giggled at by the first of the fabulous western folk.

3. At play two dogs

Way down. A good hundred feet beneath the window draped with diaphanous curtains from Sears and a tinkle with bells and a clang with canary cage, way down there on sand glowing with the earth's vital light, there way down there on the beach by water reflecting the sky's gray goodness, two eyebrows on the face of the world, two commas in the single great sentence which contains all of our fates, played.

And played.

And played.

For Girl this was a home game, her turf, and she showed the way, back arching as she plunged into the surf. No beach bunny our Girl, she would never be condemned to sit with the transistor and stuff on the shore while He the Eternal Blond One went on oddysseys. No captain's widow Girl, scanning the sea for sight of his erect from gliding in from time to time. No idle searching long strands pulled forward for split ends, oh no not her. Girl, a surfer-queen herself who went where mortals feared to go, a jolly Loch Nesser showing the visiting team all the joys of the western floodtide.

Alfred sat panting, watching her, anxious eyebrows raised. Bug-eyed with terror at the crashing on before him. Afraid. Leery. Poor Alfred, he was a doubt-bound eastern mutt, so apprehensive. And smaller than Girl. Eensy teensy on the beach below.

4. The current scene

Merilee, she

Watched.

Over.