Clade Song 4

Dolphin Song
 
A splitting apart warns the water
And the fish that beg to speak
Of the rumbling Earth below—
A deep saline connection breaking.
 
Kelp throws its dead ashore
In desperation.  Coral skeletons cling
Welded to volcanic rock.  Brainless
Organisms know hot ash-damp
Hardening into mountain roads.
 
Crying dolphins wake the morning village.
Long, blue, plasma-streaked sand
Bands of darkness flee the slick flesh
And low sun.  Old men
Drop their nets; their weak tendons
Strung on bone pop hemp-like against
The tide of squealing fish.
We read the rotting scrawls
Of blue meat.  Vagrant
Elders watch from the sea wall.
They nod.  They rise.
They scuttle across the sand
In their wisdom to join the exodus.