A Sonnet at The Edge of the Reef
By Craig Santos Perez
the Waikīkī Aquarium
We dip our hands into the outdoor reef exhibit
and touch sea cucumber and red urchin
as butterflyfish swim by. A docent explains:
once a year, after the full moon, when tides swell
to a certain height, and saltwater reaches the perfect
temperature, only then will the ocean cue coral
polyps to spawn, in synchrony, a galaxy of gametes,
which dances to the surface, fertilizes, opens,
forms larvae, roots to seafloor, and grows, generation
upon generation. At home, we read a children’s
book, The Great Barrier Reef, to our daughter
snuggling between us in bed. We don’t mention
corals bleaching, reared in labs, or frozen.
And isn’t our silence, too, a kind of shelter?
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Thursday was a fairly quiet day around here, with nice weather though wildfire smoke is returning and it was a little hazy out. I mostly did chores early, then we walked to the beach, I played some Pokemon, and when we got back I watched the Orioles win while chatting with my Thursday night regulars.
We watched the new Shelter, which I'm enjoying a lot though not sure how the modern mystery is going to live up to its Holocaust storyline. And we watched What We Do in the Shadows, with Nandor and Laszlo's three-times-a-week sex life and a vampire roast! Seattle Aquarium Pacific coral reef animals:
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