Third in a 4-part series: Maturity
Bubbles stream down his graceful form.
The sea surrounds him, rich and warm.
He playfully darts through the silky water,
He finds a mate and they have a daughter.
They all live together with his brother and mom.
The pod’s noise meets that of a bomb.
Their lives are all perfect, they whistle nice songs.
Nothing. Yes, nothing could ever go wrong.
Second in a 4-part series: Adolescence
A few months now have already passed,
The calf’s older, he’s not a tot, at last!
He’s finally stopped cowering under his mom.
Now he’s swimming around with aplomb.
He learned to catch fish all on his own,
He learned how to squeak, whistle, and moan.
He can log, spyhop, breathe, and breach,
Echo-locate things his eyes can’t reach.
His days of being cared for are fading away.
He will join his mother’s pod any day.
The clock is ticking fast, and in essence,
These are his last days of adolescence.
First in a 4-part series: Birth
Cries of gulls pierce the air,
The Gulf of Cali has beauty to spare.
The April sun warms the water,
The Sea of Cortes could not be hotter.
Although the sky and land are great,
What’s below the surf is worth the wait.
Plunge in the ocean, go down a few feet.
A submerged birth scene is what you will meet.
There, in the seaweed, floats a mother,
Giving birth to her young calf’s brother:
The tail comes first,
Then out comes the head.
The calf is free,
But sinks like lead;
The mother is nervous.
But all is well,
The calf’s not ill,
Things are swell.
To have healthy kids, some would kill.
The mother tends to her precious boy,
Tiny and cute, he resembles a toy.
The calf takes in the blazing sun,
With no idea of what’s to come….
Through thick rustling leaves of beige and toast,
O’er crisp vast ice whiter than a ghost.
Down streetways and alleys swarming with crowds,
Up huge frosty mountains piercing the clouds.
Down rift valleys and ‘cross frozen tundra,
African deserts and the Land Down Under.
The world is huge, with room to spare,
But something’s somewhere, and only there.
Dive in the sea, sink like a fallen ship.
Swim until you reach the southernmost tip
Of California, then head through the foam,
And find the place Vaquita call home:
The Sea of Cortés, rich and warm,
With rainbow fish teeming in swarms.
The tiny Vaquita, gentle and few,
Are vanishing quickly; what do we do?
They happily swim ‘mong coral and kelp,
In spite of this, they need our help.
Gillnets trap them and take their lives,
Until now, we’ve ignored their strife.
Be brave, la Vaquita, and do not fret.
Side by side, we’ll conquer the net.
Halt thou mesh-made catcher
Of thee porpoise, fair and just!
With coal eyes, and
Slate flanks, and
A slight hint of rust.
In azul waters
They sulk about,
Avoiding thou mesh-made catchers.
And they, in the end,
Will ultimately gain pity.
Bubbles dance down her side.
Her muscles ripple with every flow of movement.
She is on the hunt.
Lungs feeling tight,
She rises to the surface,
Inhaling the crisp, ripe sea air.
A huge ship breaks the horizon.
Many huge binoculars are aimed at her,
Many lights flash, discovering her majesty.
Exposed, she slips away forever.
There once was a tiny cetacean
Not well-known in the nation.
With a fluke and a fin,
Two eyes and a chin.
The Vaquita is nature’s sensation.
The sea rose, engulfing the boat.
Water pouring in, twas impossible to float.
Lightning pounding, thunder resounding,
The clouds came rolling in,
Like a field of wheat in the breeze.
Finally, it was time to begin.
I unrolled the nets, set out the floats,
Baited the trap, and then let go.
About this story I have wrote
To inform you, one who has found my boat,
That on this day, a small porpoise got trapped in my nets.
Going shrimping on this day is an action I regret.
No one should set out their nets.
I swim in a place where fish float by.
Croakers, grunts, and shrimps you fry.
Silky sea grass below, shiny sun above,
But the Gulf isn’t a place filled with much love.
You catch us with nets set out for shrimp,
And at the moment of impact, our bodies go limp.
Our entire kind is quickly disappearing.
The weight of an entire species we’re bearing.
But the one thing we care about most:
Vaquita don’t have to say “Adiós”.
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