Kelp

I don’t know about seaweed, I must’ve been smoking another type of weed when I wrote this. The narrator is trying to have a conversation with a pile of seaweed for crying out loud, like Prince Charles talking to his plants. As for the ocean’s ‘briny embrace’, what’s all that about? The last verse asks the Kelp if it accepts its fate. Of course it does. I mean, it’s not like its got any feet so it’s hardly going to shrug its shoulders (which it hasn’t got either) and walk back to the sea.

As usual I don’t have any photographs of kelp but here’s a drawing of a fish I did a few years ago:

Kelp

When moon and sun
peel back the sea like a blanket,
the music stops,
your leathery fronds collapse, 
become home to flecks of blown sand,
and black buzzing flies,
while the dry salt air draws
the moisture from your flesh.

Do you dream
of your dance in the ocean?
If you could would you
crawl your way back 
to its briny embrace?

Or do you accept your fate, 
knowing that in time, 
moon and sun 
will pull the blanket up, 
and the dance 
will begin again.