Between Sound and Silence
San Diego, CA
2016, High School, Poetry
In the beginning,
There is serenity
The seas are a constant undulation
Of soft sounds and quiet calls
A mélange of mellifluous noises
Made by animals to hunt, to mate, to survive
In the beginning,
The waters of Norwegian Sea are deep and dark
Their recesses quartering flora and fauna alike
The black blot of a bird soars over the sea, as rocky cliffs
Dig their dull faces into the belly of the gray sky
The waters are quiet from the sky
And yet
There is sound in the water
Whistling –
As they maneuver through the waters,
A harbinger of the predator to come
Clicking –
Pulses of sound
Bouncing off of
Bits of shell, off of
Wrinkled kelp, off of
A school of silver fish
Killer whales roam here,
Murky waves rippling over their sleek skins
Bodies perfectly aerodynamic
As they snake through the choppy waters
Their lilting calls fill the sea,
Sound waves bouncing
Back and forth
Back and forth
Reverberating as they stalk florid octopus
The water is dark and dangerous underneath their
Powerful fins and thick jaws,
The perfect killer
In the beginning,
The Indian Ocean is an oasis
Teeming with life and color and diversity
Here, through turquoise waters,
Swims the bottlenose dolphin in a pod
Sunlight refracts through crystalline water,
Shards of sun glinting on gray skin
Lively clicking,
Cheerful whistling
As they communicate with each other
Signals that bounce
Back and forth
Back and forth
In the beginning,
Monterey Bay houses youthful porpoises
Here, they call out incessantly
Using echolocation
To see
To navigate toward friend
And away
From foe
They chirp ebulliently,
The sound travelling
Four times as fast through water
Than it ever could
Through air
Centuries come and go,
Regimes rise and fall,
And the sea still hurls her waves
Onto the unrelenting shore
After a time, there is steam
There is heat and fire and smoke
And there is noise
Ships cut through the ocean
Iron hulls plow through blunt waves
Leaving oil and angry white foam in their wake
At first the man-made clamor
Is inconsequential – low rumblings and quiet hissings –
Until they are not
Until there are submarines and
Battlecruisers and
Aircraft carriers and
And
And
Their gray bellies hold a lethal cocktail
Of man, metal, and fire
They rip their way through the seas by sheer force,
Carving a path of steel and strength
They carry airguns in their stomachs,
Machines that blast compressed waves of sound
Into the quiet waters,
Surveying the benthic zone
Compressed air
Travelling like a bullet
Ricocheting off of the dusty ocean floor
Compressed air
Moving as quick as lightning
Cracking the serene blue
Into pieces
Reverberating
Back and forth
Back and forth
Sound travels four times as fast
Through water
Than it ever can
On land
Sonar is invisible
The perfect killer
And there are
Commercial ships with their rusty engines,
Lumbering across murky waters
Carrying cargo from country to country
The noises fall
Like pallid ashes
In the beginning,
They are innocuous
Flakes of pale sound,
Filtering through the sea
But now,
There is a maelstrom of white noise
Swirling with the tides, echoing
Back and forth
Back and forth
The song of the sea cannot be heard –
Not over the angry rumbling of an engine
Over the dull rasping of propeller blades
Where there was once
Quiet clicking off of
Bits of shell, off of
Sleek fish
There are now streams of white noise
Clouding the ocean, polluting the waters
The sounds are choking
The hissing and rumbling and noise of the humans
Overpowers
The clicking and whistling and communication of the animals
It is a cacophony – there is screeching
And screaming and wailing and it is incessant
The orcas – they cannot hunt,
The dolphins – they cannot speak,
The porpoises – they cannot see,
The whales – they cannot sing
But all sounds are temporary
Sound waves vibrate, oscillate,
Back and forth
Back and forth
Grow smaller with each cycle
Until they are infinitesimal
The perfect killer
Has been identified
Sound travels four times as fast
Through water
Than it ever can
On land
And yet,
These noises can dissipate
They are not permanent
This problem can be
Rectified
In the beginning,
There was serenity
There was the mellifluous serenading of whales,
The sharp clicking of quick-witted porpoises,
The joyous chirping of dolphins,
The ominous whistling of killer whales
Then they were drowned
Their calls muffled by metal engines,
Muffled by man
And they stumble in the dark
They are in a world
That has taken away
Their eyes, their ears, their hands
Their peace
But
Given time, and given cooperation,
In the future,
There can be serenity
Once more
Reflection
One evening, several years ago, while in my father’s computer room, I stumbled upon old magazines with photos depicting numerous whale strandings. The horrific images shocked me – I wondered, why did this happen? And why weren’t more people talking about it? The shocking images were burned into my memory, and ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by whale beachings.
My initial question led me to several answers, one of which was noise pollution in the ocean. Oceanic noise pollution is an issue often neglected, in the shadow of more palpable problems, like oil spills and plastic waste. However, even though it is invisible, this auditory pollution creates many problems in marine wildlife today.
I’ve read many cases surrounding oceanic noise in my research, and wanted to write something simpler and more visceral than numbers and facts, portraying what I believed to be the ocean’s perspective. And more importantly, I wanted to call attention to the problem that I’d stumbled upon in my father’s old magazines so many years ago.
After my research, I’ve concluded that although noise pollution is a serious issue, there have been many efforts to reduce underwater noise produced from marine vessels. For example, rules and regulations are being written to mitigate the destruction of wakes of ships, and noise-reduction propellers are being designed. Hopefully, in the future, the sea will return to its serenity once more, and man and marine can coexist in harmony.