The Sea Is Silent but the Lights Are On
Alameda, CA
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
We find it lying on the beach:
A lump of scales and fingernails,
An inky trail up from the water
Slithering through the sand
Its eyes open and filmy
As if surprised by the sudden darkness,
Eyelashes heavy with tiny black pearls,
Its hair slicked shiny and black over the white sand, Vertebrae protruding.
I remember sailing with Papa
And Uncle would pop open a can
And say “Did you ever hear, son, about the siren songs?
And how they sound like the river through a sizzling summer,
With tones as rich as dark, heavy plums
That could lure any sailor overboard?”
They would tell me of their fine flax hair
And scales the color of the moon
Rippling over the calmest waters,
And how their satin lips
That could charm Odysseus
Held sharp, sharp teeth:
Knives that tore away skin like birch bark
And crunched bones with sound like Christmas crackers,
And how the sea ran red like the sunset
Whenever they were near
I used to imagine them waiting
In the quiet Gulf,
Beautiful and dangerous, Timeless.
And sometimes
If I listened hard,
I heard a whisper of a sound
That sent toothbrush tingles up my back
And made me think of crimson waves
We find it lying on the beach,
Rotting sea smell in our noses,
Sun sinking muddily behind the clouds
As the graying ocean foams and froths below,
A black line shimmering slickly on the horizon.
We stand over it briefly, shoe-shuffling
Like friends of friends at a funeral, Uncomfortable in our blacks.
Some predatory fish, Uncle pronounces,
You can tell by the rows of teeth.
Father nods along, knowingly,
Kicking at the flies amassing on the kelp-wound tail.
We leave it lying there
On the beach,
Another rank and misshapen creature,
Eyes wide as if searching for ships,
Face sunk in the seepage from tarred lungs,
Bony fingers clawing for air,
Blackness slicked over too sharp teeth.
And we turn towards home,
Quickly,
To where the sea is silent but the lights are on.
Reflection
Reflection
“The Sea is Silent but the Lights Are On” is a free verse poem about the loss of biodiversity in the BP Oil Spill of 2010. This year, in AP Environmental Science, I learned about Deepwater Horizon and the effects of oil spills/cleanup on ecosystems. I remember asking a friend once why people continue to use fossil fuels even though they are damaging and unsustainable. Her answer was that people were willing to sacrifice the natural world just to “keep the lights on.”
A combination of my research about the BP Oil Spill, inspiration from a Far Side cartoon, and my experience discovering washed-up animals during Coastal Cleanup Day birthed the image of a mermaid caught in an underwater plume and coughed up on the seashore. I wanted to contrast the narrator’s description of the power of the mythical siren with their description of the rather pathetic corpse. The irony is that even though the narrator was terrified of the mermaids, the mermaids had more reason to fear the narrator. People today do not realize the threat humans pose to the ocean environment, which is why we react like the narrator’s family: with denial and attempts at justification. The first step toward becoming an ocean advocate is realizing that we are the true terrors of the sea, not Nessie, or the Kraken, or even the bone-crunching sirens. I want this poem to make people ask themselves just how much they are willing to give up to keep the lights on.