Jellyfish and Aqua-Men

Nov 24 2017

The mid-winter thaw

is becoming predictable

in this age of extremes.

The atmosphere thickening,

the world on thinning ice.

Like an old couple, re-breathing stale air,

sunk

into over-stuffed chairs

in their over-heated home.

The smell of mildew, boiled cabbage,

the pulpy must of books.

And oceans, like an acid Coke

without the fizz or can.

Or stewing in a tepid bath

so long you wish you hadn't,

a scum of soap, and bits of skin

a ring of grunge and lather.

So I listen to the dripping eaves

as if counting down the seconds,

clomp along in gumboots

through sloppy sucking slush.

Wet snow

gloppy as cold oatmeal

in the dull grey light,

and that wet penetrating cold

that chills to-the-bone

despite the mild weather.

They say a high pressure system is on its way,

a brisk west wind

and clear blue sky.

When the ground will freeze

into beaten metal

that could use some fresh white camouflage.

But still

the water-planet warms, its trackless oceans rise.

Is this

where our feckless journey ends,

webbed and finned submariners

as our ancient forbears began?

Jellyfish and aqua-men

and not much else,

drifting through the fabulous city

at the bottom of the sea;

skyscrapers, thrusting up

from still black depths,

dark abandoned streets
choked with rust, and silt, and weeds.

As the comments that introduce this blog say – and which still hold, even though they were written 10 or so years ago – I assiduously avoid writing poems about politics and advocacy and issues of public policy. Because that's exactly what the essay, which is so much more suited to argument and debate, was made for. And because poetry – which should show instead of say; should allude, instead of comprehensively cover; and should feel, instead of analyze – can hardly do justice to complicated issues. Preachy poetry sounds heavy-handed and pretentious. No one wants to sound sanctimonious, self-righteous, and pious. And when poetry gets didactic and argumentative, it just doesn't work.

But sometimes, a poem grabs me by the nose, and I can't help but follow. So when I looked out the window, and thought a poem about the predictable mid-winter thaw – even if more unpredictably frequent and intense – might be something to play around with, it was pretty inevitable that climate change would shoulder its way in. And anyway, it seems about time: since climate change is something I feel so strongly about, my persistent avoidance of the issue has come to seem insincere, as if I'm betraying a fundamental principle.

I hope I've succeeded in making this a poem, and not a polemic. That I resisted arguing, stating, and laying out all the science and culture and politics that plague this issue, and instead simply focused on imagery and simile and surprise, on word-play and sound and musicality. That I managed to say something big; but say it in a small way. Which, paradoxically, can be much more powerful: by sneaking up on the reader; by making a more personal connection.

My original title was Re-Breathe. I thought it captured the nub of the issue, but in a way that's small, relatable, and emotionally affecting: distilling the complicated issue of pollution down to re-breathing our own stale air, swimming in our own tepid bathwater. But then, I ultimately couldn't resist Jellyfish and Aqua-Men. It's the kind of intriguing title you see in a table of contents, and have to turn to immediately just to see what it's about.