God Speaks Through the Seals.

• Author: Harwell, Sarah C.
• Position: POEM - Poem

God Speaks Through the Seals The seals returned from near extinction to rest and brood on a J-shaped brooch, fastened, a mile long and a few feet wide, to nothing stable, a breach that interrupts the sea, that ceaseless and unworried sloshing-- if you wear your glasses underneath you can see what the sea is wearing claws and weird blooming things and tiny fish flurrying like exploded flowers-- giving rise to words like marl and bight and others that you rarely say, unsure of meanings-- but under there you understand you don't belong to that which causes light to split into streams, a fish out of water, and so retreat to shore to watch the seals who slip in and out mooing, grunting, clapping their flippers, hundreds of their black, wetted heads popping out of the water, staring at us, friend and foe, the landed daughters and sons of amoebas who chose the trees and air and breeze and walked away from that which isn't solid and when it rains, as it did today, feel closed in and snug and cared for. There is something to be said for seeing that which can kill you-- unlike a seal who slides in and out of danger, unaware of the shark who, with no warning music, no crunch or rustle or baying, rises from so deep a place you...