We have tried to fit you in,
lumbering you with familiar names,
shamelessly labelling you:
plodder, late-comer,
wobbly moss-beast.
Sky-divers, galaxy-striders,
depth-riders, you can leap
from sauna to ice bath,
without shrinking,
in the wink of an eye.
And foolishly, we write rules
that don’t apply to you,
radiating cool, defying filing,
to stride, pioneers hitching wagons
to a new star, taking the next slow,
sturdy steps into ubiquity.
I have cast off weight to glide,
lost light in the undersky.
Where my cousins plod,
I rainbow arc,
backlit swiftness,
sleek among the butterflies.
Close to grace, I open,
lotus-like,
a fine fruit,
toothsome,
its bruised flesh threshed
by my winnowing maw.
Gorged, I sheathe my
glass scimitars, and
weave into darkness,
seeking further sweetness.
This piece was written in October 2017, from an Allographic workshop about animal poetry with Robin Lamboll. Sea Angels are, essentially, marine snails that ditched their shells a long time ago to glide through the water with their "wings". (Well, sort of – read the Wikipedia article for more details...)
Look out for this and its Lesser Spotted friends in Spectral next year!
 |
| I enjoyed drawing this - the first time I've used colours since I started drawing last year. Source image by Alexander Semenov. |
