Forests of weed waved from down there
where glow could only penetrate so deep,
a sea of murk, blowing past our view.
We waited. Slow, slow the creatures came
and we caught them, gaggle of students chattering
at each undulating alien enclosed
and on display within clear plastic bowls.
Sarsia, a jelly little known, wiggling
mouthpart jerking lightly side to side,
unconcerned, its prison large enough
to mimic, for its small compass, the whole sea.
A Nereid worm writhed as it stared with blank
grasshopper face, paddles rippling
luridly painted in neon blues and reds,
an artist’s contemporary fever dream
out of deep past, accidental of prehistory
disclosed by our artless scooping. We hoped
for a seal, which I was told sometimes rise
to prospect among fish attracted by the light,
figure of power to reward our efforts.
We watched for that whiskered face, that wild strength.
“It’s startling when they come,” our trip leader said.
“Sometimes it’s almost scary.”
A gossamer worm was summarily captured;
the lacy egg-yolk skirts of a Phacellophora.
All night no seal rose to interrupt us,
and the light seemed to probe less far the longer we stayed.
I write most often about nature and the environment. My chapbook Water Street (FLP, 2017) won the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize, and my poetry has appeared in venues including Scientific American, Terrain.org, Cider Press Review, Connecticut River Review, and the forthcoming anthology Cape Cod to Nova Scotia: Art Ecology Poetry. The author of the middle grade eco-novel THE MONARCHS OF WINGHAVEN (Walker Books US, 2024), I have published science journalism in The Boston Globe, Seattle Times, Science News and other venues. I hold a doctorate in geology from the University of Michigan, have served as writer in residence at FHL, the Shoals Marine Laboratory in Maine, and the Forbes Library in Massachusetts, and have previously worked as a journalist, environmental consultant, and Seattle Aquarium docent. Born in England to emigrants from Brazil, I now teach at Smith College in western Massachusetts.
Banner image is courtesy the poet.
