Excerpt from An Aquarium

Kelp
How easy it is to lose oneself
in a kelp forest. Between
canopy leaves, sunlight filters thru
the water surface; nutrients
bring life where there’d other-
wise be barren sea; a vast eco-
system breathes. Each
being being
being’s link.

Sponge
We have yet to understand
the mystery of the sponge. A phylum
unto itself, sponge
fossils found
in Doushantuo phosphorite
are the most ancient of
multicellular animals. The sponge lives
at all depths o the sea, an array of colors,
shapes, textures, canals, Goethe’s
paradise, lacks coincidence. In reality,
a sponge isn’t a parasite unless
it’s human. Then it doesn’t purify but
withers the world. Remmeber
Kropotkin’s mutual trust and support,
Proudhon’s exchange, Gahndi’s boycotts.

Squid
In the U.S., Nemo’s Nautilus
was attacked by a giant cuttle-
fish squid--What a freak of nature!
a bird’s beak on a mollusk!--
But a friend tells me that
in Mexico it was a giant octopus.
How profound translation
shapes our dreams! And dream
a silent translation of a dream
the way squids chromatophorically
communicate. And translation
a dream of One. Translate,
follow up on, follow after. . .

From An Aquarium. © 2008 by Jeffrey Yang. All rights reserved.