Your Mona Lisa smile implies you know much more than I,

Where grow the sweetest prickly pears, where hawks plummet and ply

Their taloned trade among the mangroves while the crabs and lizards flit

Along the sand, through coves with lichen-mottled rocks where sea lions hit

The snooze alarm for minutes more of sun-drenched bliss before they nose

Into the waves to grab some fish.  Your watchful gaze and marble pose

Capture the ways of the Galapagos.

[Photo taken in Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos, Sep. 2022]