In Perspective


The natural world holds many wonders
Maybe the first artists, if one ponders
Before Lascaux and Altamira
Back to the Mesozoic era

Down Under lives a proper aesthete
Whose talent is a stranger Main Street
The Bower bird with twigs and fibers
Makes a bower for a subscriber

The female he hopes to woo and mate
Some would just primp feathers for a date
But this fowl’s got the Bohemian touch
Nature made him no equal as such

Through the bower he makes an alley
By which way the female will sally
And past the threshold of this wonder
She beholds his treasure and plunder

There arrayed for her inspection
Stones and bones of curious selection
But only those of white or grey palette
And on this “gesso” she casts her ballot

The male arranges them in perspective
The female’s vision must need corrective
Placing larger objects at the rear
And smaller ones by the female near

A primitive three-point perspective
To fool his courted mate prospective
Cozened into thinking him bigger
You know she’s not a gold digger

Or else she prefers his artistry
To the common lot at aviary
Their taste is somewhat Philistine
Bowers beat their love nests sight unseen

But here’s a true winged Dutch Master
Though the blue-footed booby is faster
One who writes out his love in “gesso”
As if a canvas by Masaccio!

And speaking of the Renaissance
Did Brunelleschi descend from him perchance?
When he showed three-point to Medicis,
Did his forbear stand below his knees?

At one point bower bird flings some grey thing
A Jackson Pollock action painting? 
It flies on to the vanishing point
So too his love will reach the melting point

But now his mind’s on another art
Creating something before they part
Masterpieces beyond the Louvre
A chirping and tweeting chef d’oeuvre

His trade in his canvas, “gesso”– primed 
But Audubon prints yellow in time
He’ll make a craft to never tarnish
Her body provides natural varnish

Giving “egg tempera” new meaning
The natural urge is overweening
In three weeks living “sculptures” will cheep
While Mona Lisa will ever sleep

So now with Maestro’s opus finished 
His work will never be diminished
But live on in the generations
Could we ask for better creations?

In human life art is for the soul
In bird terms spreading genes the purpose sole
If that profile doesn’t make the dish
Wait ‘til you hear about the puffer fish

Upstream


She jumps and flips and skims the surface
With mind set on a single purpose
A calling as old as this river
Leads her on without any dither

From stream bed out to the Pacific 
Two years at sea to be specific
She learned to avoid the predators
Contend against the competitors

Peregrinations so far and wide
She came through to the other side
Then began the upriver portion
To test her body with contortion

Then by Higgins' Bend she took a mate
A full commitment on a first date!
He kept off the talons and the paws
Also the river eels’ gaping maws

It wasn’t for any pillow talk
Or on fins and tails to leer and gawk
All passion toward a higher design
Any tenderness or love resign

At Chinook Falls they ran the gauntlet
Successful leaps are utmost vaunted
Claws waylay there to catch the weakest
Generations depend on the quickest

Then onward toward their destiny
And at river’s end ends her chastity
More will end there if you know the tale
But almighty id will never fail

Arriving at her freshwater stream
This place always determined her dreams
Took the place of mother and cradle
Nothing else in her life was stable

And now she sweeps up the river bed
Not for her rest but others instead
Another rest she will know quite soon
A sacrifice comes with every boon

Even by now her flesh has languished
But Nature’s charge will soothe her anguish 
Wouldn’t think to level invective
Against the callous prime directive

And there the last waltz with mate is done
And genetic future sorely won
She could have stayed a happy swimmer
But now the light begins to dimmer

And such is life upon this planet
If only they had another gambit
Had their chance to find other waters
And so too for their sons and daughters

Fished Out


In Jenkins' Cove, recessed off the bay
You once could find a dazzling array
Not there by the lighthouse or the beach
You needed to make a surface breach

Beneath purse seiners and gritty skiffs
The ocean held more enticing gifts
And there among the roiling currents
The tow’s beyond human endurance

The summer set would gather in style
Not the ones in that French Gothic pile
A greater mansion among the kelp
And parties where no profits would help

The fins would come for joyous affairs
But only while boats were in repair
And make hay while the sun shone
(or is that seaweed in the sun-streaked zone?)

So life was good then for the moment
Until the trawlers gave their omen
Schools bred like there were no tomorrow
No class there was for future sorrow

But in those halcyon days they’d come
The steelheads, bluefish, and Salmon Chum
To feast upon the ocean’s bounty
Until catch laws changed in the county

Bluefins and mackerels made much din
Was enjoying the moment such a sin?
Flounders would only show one profile
Only two-faced fish ever show guile

They’d feast on plankton and lobster tails
And scallops, mussels, oysters, and kale
Water ballet rounded the dancing
But crabs prefer the sidestep fancy

Kissing fish show how loving is done
(For landlubbers not easily won)
Tetras put their strobe lights on high beam
To catch the silver glint of the bream

Algae blooms for a floral display
Ever since the fish plant came to stay
Portuguese Man of War flex blue bubbles
[Only ship not here to make trouble]

And in those seaweed salad days
Man was a welcome sight on the quays
Then pride and folly had their way
And something bad came over the bay

Flying fish have a hard time just now
With the flotsam of plastic you know
Swordfish don’t swim by much any more
Seeing as nets now make sea lanes poor   
 
Schools once frolicked all in harmony
Now live like a broken family
By hook or by crook Man takes his plunder
Smaller catches should be no wonder


And once a kind of a paradise
Proverbial desert is the price
Once we trawled in limitless seas
Diminished yield must now be the fee

Yet there is another way to catch
They might take their haul by smaller batch  
Restore Neptune’s family if they can
Then maybe improve the lot of Man