1930

Lacking the poetic gifts of my respected '29 counterpart, Hal Ripley, I am happily indebted to 1930's poet laureate, ShellyStark, and his hometown Palisadian-Post, for the following written, coincidentally, several days before the ExxonValdez ecological disaster. Here's some food for thought:

Reflections from a Tidepool Yesterday, on the beach, I spoke to a pelican. "O Pelican," I said, "Where are they gone? Not only your kind, Skimming the waves on cushion'd air In solemn queues Of twos Or threes or fours Or more, So few now, too bad, And others too. O Pelican," I said. "Where are the pipers beaking after sand crabs, And their lessers, Grey With white waistcoats Racing each surf on scissor legs? Even the gulls have fled This shore. 0 Pelican," I said, "Pelican, I can remember earlier yesterdays. I saw a sea lion once Riding a wave. He barked at me. The sky was full Of wings of gulls And on the beach their three-toed tracks ceased Like magic Where they took flight All in a flock. Schools of silver fish broke the sea's surface And you dove, O Pelican, Down Like a big-lipped arrow. The gulls screamed at you as you ate. There were many then. Now the sea is cesspool green. And where you bobbed for dinner now bobs the land's Garbage. O Pelican, O Pelican, Seabirds are gone or going. After them, who then?" I said. The pelican was dead, of course. He could not speak. Water had gather'd in his open beak And when I stooped to look Reflected, I saw myself. Thanks, Shelly.

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