Poems for Peace

Pantanal Piranha

In a bluish boat on a brown river,
visitors in bright blouses and khaki shorts
peer through bulky binoculars,
      pointing at purple plumes
      and knobby orange knees
before steering to wider waters
      where they dangle rattan rods
            rigged with beguiling barbs.

A fierce pull hoists a frightened fish
      (notorious for tearing teeth),
who has snatched a death-catch
      that slips between incisors
            and out through an eye.

Gasps and squeals of surprise and delight
      supplant the gentle lapping of liquid
                  as I turn my back,
wondering why we are so willfully unaware
      of what is blatantly clear
            in a fish’s eye.

Annelida                                

Frosty fingers snatch another
      (and another)
soft-bodied somebody
      from a water-covered walkway.

Passersby
      pretend not to see.

Boneless beings
      have no eyes,
            no flippers,
                  no fins,
and anyone who would leave them
            (legless and limp)
      in those lingering liquids
is certainly more spineless and unseeing
            than a lovely wee worm.

Stranded Sardine

Such a bountiful beach
      with so many marvels—
            but only one looked back
      through glorious though glazed
            gold and ebony portholes,
      a singularly lovely citizen of the sea,
            so silvery, silent,
                  and still.

I lifted her tenderly.

She was slender, lithe,
      and limp—
her cold scales glistened
      with greens, steely blues,
      and a bit of blossom pink.

The fish fluttered faintly against my fingers.

Startled (by hope)
      I rushed to pitch her seaward.

            She hit the hollow of a curved (and compelling) wave
      and was turned in the tide,
but before she was taken,
      I saw her slight and shining scales
      shimmer in the sunlight
            as she flipped her fins
                  and surged
      into that swirling sea of possibilities.