Multiple Re-Entry By PW Covington

The greatest
Customs and Immigration officers
I ever saw
Stood guard
Atop the bluffs
At Belinda Beach

Salt cedars, twisted
     redwood sentinels
          and eucalyptus (immigrants, here, themselves)

Roots and branches
Wood and leaves
Bring you back to things terrestrial
For half a mile after that
Grey-washed, rocky cove

They inspect your senses with aromatic
     late spring, welcome
And, slowly, as you declare yourself
With destinations of concrete and real estate
The ocean’s never ending,
Lunar tune grows muffled

Here, at this landing
On this shore
At this organic checkpoint of the soul,
These green-clad,
     towering,
          ancient agents
Stamp every sun-blessed, fortune-kissed, trans-Pacific
Pilgrim’s heart that passes
     as
          ‘multiple re-entry’