Skeleton Coast
Cape Fur Seal Reserve, Cape Cross, Namibia
Even the smallest skulls, seeded
with black mussel shells, streamline toward sea,
away from horizon’s Mars-scape
of fawn-red sand, scattered rock. Curved spines
the length of my arm, elbow to wrist, litter
the gray beach, the baby seal graveyard, poking
like broken umbrella ribs through skins emptied
along the jackals’ star-print trails I add
my own moony lumber to, shadowing their hunt
along the colony’s edge. The point-break wave
focuses to hundreds of seals
riding that rippling indifference
to the orientation of shore, rookery
where thousands more lounge, nurse,
call out—mothers, in husky barks;
the young, with the staccato tremolo
of lambs. So many still
infant-sleek, three days
preseason; black coats not yet turned
the dullness that would save them—copper underfur,
the yearling’s olive-gray: fade of the weathering
split-rail cross, its one standing arm
a lost century’s shipped-in fencepost
lichen has tatted its bony lace to
at the handful of human graves where morning’s trek
began: all that remains
of the guano rush--white gold, the industry’s
failed town. There is no parallel between peopling
and sealing. Never was. Language was always indentured
to dominion; this coast named
not for the jackals’ leavings, spines the clubbers
won’t leave to shore, but for the rusting wrecks
sentried along its rocks—ships once armed
with astrolabes and marine quadrants
to catch the altitude from sun at noon, polestar
at midnight, centuries before the discovery
of longitude. Before the science of cartilage plates
and goblet cells; before the weighing
of organs. Before the invention of the circular
diamond saw, before the breath of dust
ashing its tip, dulling the reflection
in the laboratory’s steel table
as it longitudinally sections the upper canines to calculate
the age of the dead, incremental lines counted
like the rings of tree trunks as absolute
here in their absence as the distance
between this ivory brain pan I photograph
and a perfect sphere, between globe and planet, expression
and intent: seal reserve, as in
we reserve the right to--Science no answer
for the water-worn stones that spill
from the split stomachs of so many
dissected young; for my hunching
all morning, all afternoon, to blur to this rock
the caravel of my own body, sad sail
of pale skin, to disappear in their view
as the kelp beds they raft
foam emerald, the distant sea and sky
sapphire, entirely cloudless. As jackals
with salt-sprayed fur , blood-stained muzzles,
loop through the landed as if weaving
a maze of sea-slick boulders their terrestrial limbs
effortlessly navigate. What we share, the hunger to stay
angelic meat: bones’ holy light shadowed
by a halo of skin beginning its wear
from our very beginning, like the wooden padrões
the first Portuguese arrivals erected to mark ours
before sailing on, no due given the domain
of salt and wind, the quickening dissolve discovered
only on return.
The ships’ second wave loaded padrões of limestone
to out-weight weather; generation
after generation, infant seals keep swallowing
pebbles and sea-glass; clubbers worry their day’s crop
of coins into grain. A microscope
hones the cusped teeth laid out beneath it
as if to constellate with the known
some small field of night sky; you and I
rattle these bones, the sorry dice
of these words, between us—all
ballast, all in the end weightless
as the froth that will foam the mouths of the youngest
three days from now, the ones calling out
at the highest pitch, voicing to sympathetic vibration
the three tiniest bones of the body
as if they might find there
anchor, safe harbor, some small welcoming
waving them ashore.
Published in Green Mountains Review
For Photo gallery of the Cape Cross seal colony, click here:
Cape Fur Seal Reserve, Cape Cross, Namibia
Even the smallest skulls, seeded
with black mussel shells, streamline toward sea,
away from horizon’s Mars-scape
of fawn-red sand, scattered rock. Curved spines
the length of my arm, elbow to wrist, litter
the gray beach, the baby seal graveyard, poking
like broken umbrella ribs through skins emptied
along the jackals’ star-print trails I add
my own moony lumber to, shadowing their hunt
along the colony’s edge. The point-break wave
focuses to hundreds of seals
riding that rippling indifference
to the orientation of shore, rookery
where thousands more lounge, nurse,
call out—mothers, in husky barks;
the young, with the staccato tremolo
of lambs. So many still
infant-sleek, three days
preseason; black coats not yet turned
the dullness that would save them—copper underfur,
the yearling’s olive-gray: fade of the weathering
split-rail cross, its one standing arm
a lost century’s shipped-in fencepost
lichen has tatted its bony lace to
at the handful of human graves where morning’s trek
began: all that remains
of the guano rush--white gold, the industry’s
failed town. There is no parallel between peopling
and sealing. Never was. Language was always indentured
to dominion; this coast named
not for the jackals’ leavings, spines the clubbers
won’t leave to shore, but for the rusting wrecks
sentried along its rocks—ships once armed
with astrolabes and marine quadrants
to catch the altitude from sun at noon, polestar
at midnight, centuries before the discovery
of longitude. Before the science of cartilage plates
and goblet cells; before the weighing
of organs. Before the invention of the circular
diamond saw, before the breath of dust
ashing its tip, dulling the reflection
in the laboratory’s steel table
as it longitudinally sections the upper canines to calculate
the age of the dead, incremental lines counted
like the rings of tree trunks as absolute
here in their absence as the distance
between this ivory brain pan I photograph
and a perfect sphere, between globe and planet, expression
and intent: seal reserve, as in
we reserve the right to--Science no answer
for the water-worn stones that spill
from the split stomachs of so many
dissected young; for my hunching
all morning, all afternoon, to blur to this rock
the caravel of my own body, sad sail
of pale skin, to disappear in their view
as the kelp beds they raft
foam emerald, the distant sea and sky
sapphire, entirely cloudless. As jackals
with salt-sprayed fur , blood-stained muzzles,
loop through the landed as if weaving
a maze of sea-slick boulders their terrestrial limbs
effortlessly navigate. What we share, the hunger to stay
angelic meat: bones’ holy light shadowed
by a halo of skin beginning its wear
from our very beginning, like the wooden padrões
the first Portuguese arrivals erected to mark ours
before sailing on, no due given the domain
of salt and wind, the quickening dissolve discovered
only on return.
The ships’ second wave loaded padrões of limestone
to out-weight weather; generation
after generation, infant seals keep swallowing
pebbles and sea-glass; clubbers worry their day’s crop
of coins into grain. A microscope
hones the cusped teeth laid out beneath it
as if to constellate with the known
some small field of night sky; you and I
rattle these bones, the sorry dice
of these words, between us—all
ballast, all in the end weightless
as the froth that will foam the mouths of the youngest
three days from now, the ones calling out
at the highest pitch, voicing to sympathetic vibration
the three tiniest bones of the body
as if they might find there
anchor, safe harbor, some small welcoming
waving them ashore.
Published in Green Mountains Review
For Photo gallery of the Cape Cross seal colony, click here: