HERE WE ARE the nuthatches land on my porch weather comes down the fall it is autumn autumn is a season of constant veering the sea lions are barking wait that is somewhere else no sea here no lions but there is a barking I hear at night the house dark stars send their clear messages through the trees a neighbor's faint light yellow answers without speaking a barking I said that is I know neighbor dogs but before that a wild crying could be coyotes who return because the farms no longer serve to make a living and the outskirts of town are full of offal and a tangle of brush in which to hide or it could be how the sea lions sound once they've travelled this far inland lost their way dried out the water saltless companions buried along the way one last cry in the moonlight poetic but obscure since their bodies won't be found and would be described as something else since no sea lions here remember this we know and hold fast to