Crab Mother

Here You were unknown in the Deep

until new instruments of mass destruction found You.

Technology plundered Your womb/tomb, nothing sacred.

Exhausting, know-nothing, claw-back government,

ruled by the almighty dollar, touted You as inexhaustible resource.

The exciting new fishery created injustice, imbalance,

severed solidarity, entrenched class-struggle,

in our little village perched

on our precarious cliff, facing Immense Uncertainty.

Crab Mother! What does it mean to be soft inside Your shell?

How many times can Your arms grow back?

What is Your relationship to Spider Grandmother?

What lies beyond ‘collapse of species’?

When the web of life is torn, when the basket of eggs

is overturned by greed, what holds us?

What do You know about cancer?

What (global) warning did we fail to learn from Your claws?

Does it make You less crabby when females are thrown back

while males are decimated (Your children, lovers?)

(Does an ex-con praise catch-and-release?)

How old are You? Are You dying?

Or are we committing suicide, trying to devour You?

What worm of doom is eating our hard-crust heart?

Is there a salt-born butterfly of hope?

What does it mean to catch Mystery in our trap?

to catch Truth in a net of lies?

Can we really trap anything but ourselves?

harm anything but our children’s children?

The only way out of a trap is backwards.

We fear jumping from the pot into the fire.

How can we find our way out of the cage of guilt?

We have wasted Your bounty with our mutiny.

We strip-mine, clear-cut, pollute the Bottom’s Wilderness.

We destroy Your habitat out of uncaring habit.

Many-armed One! S.O.S. Help us! We are losing our grip.

We are drowning in our folly, our plastic, our own hubris.

What does ‘progress’ mean to You who move sideways?

Teach us to go sideways, Your way, slow,

not full-speed ahead into disaster!

Teach us to adapt to a tsunami of change.

When will we learn to honor You,

to dive deep into our ‘own’ depths,

which are Yours: Tehom! Deep Mother!

O Oceanic Oneness,

Teach us to breathe with thanks.

____________________________________________________________________

Eight-armed, I scout the ocean

for Spider Grandmother, Cosmic Spinster.

I try to clean the bottom, but I'm disgusted.

No wonder I sound ‘crabby.’

There is no bottom to greed and ingratitude!

Edging sideways, I sidestep problems.

A bit of defensiveness helps in a pinch.

Traps lurk everywhere, scooping up everybody!

What will be left when the madness ceases?

Hermit crab is in retreat.

Lobster still looks for hot water.

For Myself, I know the secret of renewal,

but sea-song is choking on endless plastic.

Sea turtles, whales with stomachs impacted,

what can they do? I'm a reporter.

I send back news from the clear-cut field.

It's not a battle: eco-cide.

What happens next is not My fault.

© Tamara Rasmussen 2018