Seahorse

It is said an encounter with a seahorse
in a dream is an encounter with the un-
conscious. Is this because both
evoke delicate armor? Beneath
history is another history we’ve made
without knowing it. No bit’s
small enough to harness. Ritual
dance, her ovipositor in his belly
pouch […] progeny disperse.

Shark

The fossil record of sharks reaches
far past the dinosaurs. To the Hawaiians
mano, god and messenger of the gods;
to the Mayans xoc fish carved glyphs.
At Yaxchilàn, Lady Xoc bleeds her tongue
with a rope of thorns, opening
the way to the ancestors. And xoc of Pacal
Palenque could signify a foreigner?
From the Gulf of Mexico up
the Mississippi beyond where the people
of Poverty Point preceded, xoc swim.
Every doorway tells a story.

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 of 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. Remember
Kropotkin’s mutual trust and support,
Proudhon’s exchange, Gandhi’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 mollusc!—
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 . . .

Starfish

One feels a sainte-terrer walking
the starfish shore. The soul
delighteth in decussate symmetry
dwells quincuncially. Without a word
prayer elevates the heart. Star-
fish have neither brain nor heart.
Perhaps they are pure intellect of
soul pure coincidence pure
feeling clinging to the rocks of Paradise.
Far from living water the soul desiccates.