INTERVIEW
WITH THE SEA
Sometimes
I tire of the ebb and flow,
that
restless cease, surcease of the heart:
systole,
diastole, squeezing moonlight out of my skin.
Darkness
descends, I am left with little
more
than the definition of thin sheets
between
my body and the ponderous weight of air.
Hot
water vents, cracks in the floor, creatures with no mouths.
How
barnacles stand on their heads and eat with feathery feet.
More
time. The despair of those lost at sea. Full fathom five.
Coelacanths,
coral polyps; that briny bath blooming.
Stromatolites.
The first “I am” life uttered. The Bermuda Triangle.
Thalatta,
thalatta. Basilisks. QueegQueeg’s
tattoos.
I
am fond of the gobies and those mudskippers.
If
you want to blame someone, blame their ancestors.
If
only they hadn’t attempted to breathe air!
I
trouble the coastlines, ceaselessly nibbling at them.
I
think of rain falling on my skin as a kind of poetry.
I
miss the song of the myriad river tongues,
so
many missing, shadows of their former selves.
My
poor rivers. Less gossip from the heartland.
A
bad taste in my mouth. The Danube, the Rhine, the Dnipr.
Those
missing in action: the Colorado. The Sea of Azov.
I
understand there are others. What of the mighty Amazon,
Old
Muddy, The Yantzhee, The Nile? Are not their songs my songs?
I
miss the music of whales that circled my body like an echo.
Where
have my salmon children gone? My shoals of herring?
That
incessant droning of engines, a continuous headache, there is no cure.
Drift
nets. Oil is only one problem.
There
are others I don’t wish to discuss.
The
equatorial sun drinks my skin. The way the stars dress me.
Starfish
on the mudflats at daybreak. The origins of indigo.
Yes,
I am aware the pH of their blood is similar to mine,
yes,
tears and amniotic fluid. But they must cease.
No,
I don’t hold it against them, for am I not their mother?
2/15/94
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