Devil’s Tongue Weed (Japanese Slipperyweed, Red Lettuce), Grateloupia turuturu
for Rolan
The beckoning world began when he was little,
beetles, their wings a rush of water and bright metal, filled
his pockets, lizards leant curious heads from between his fingers,
their lithe bodies beating a pulse into his palm, bird wings
were the flight of his heart. Later came the gait
of different creatures, the thump of rabbit feet sending
a blood-shiver deep as tree-roots, the warmth of fox pups
sinking soft, fleet shadows in his skin. Doves, love birds,
ducks, dingoes, wombats, cats, horses, snakes; a bestiary
as disparate as the Arc. In adolescence he haunted
the sea, its salt-lure as strong as Circe’s, the animals
extraordinary in their self-containment and coldness,
their names leaping them from fish to friend,
Blenny, Goby, Cowfish, Weedfish, Stargazer, Grubfish, Kelpfish, Damselfish, Bullseye, Silverbelly, Velvetfish, Spinyfin, Sandpaperfish, Crusthead, Hardyhead, Wearyfish, Whiptail
and most endearing of all, the Handfish, crawling
with pectoral fins along the bottom, the size
to cup in his own hand. The river teemed, running
with its own music, separate to the world of air,
the fur-filled, warm-blooded world. Now it is his sons
who catch skinks and bluetongues, pocket beetles,
snails, slugs, worms, keep soft-furred rabbits in a hutch
in the garden and tadpoles completing miracles
in a green bucket. Walking the rocks, their fingers
anemone-like in his own, they spot eel, skate,
octopus, dolphin, seal, but he knows the handfish
are endangered and crayfish, once richly abundant
as their colour, are hard to find. It is a different song
he hears now, the refrain slow but inexorable:
Northern Pacific Seastar, Japanese Seaweed, Pacific Oyster, raw sewage spillage, atrazine, cadmium, mercury, zinc, lead.
He reads the latest reports, insists they only fish
in waters swept by Southern Ocean currents,
while each day, his sons salvage bones and fossils,
shells and starfish to line their bedroom window sill,
pulling the river one wave closer each time
until at night it laps at their ears and they sleep,
their world too small yet for pollution, poison, extinction,
knowing only renewal, their trust huge in his hands.