Listening to Fish

I'm excited to be returning next month to Bonaire, an island I haven't visited in over twenty years. I'll be carrying along my new bible, Ned & Anna DeLoach's Reef Fish Behavior, a companion volume to the great set of fish, coral, and creature identification guides Ned DeLoach put together with the brilliant Paul Humann. There isn't much these people haven't seen, and photographed, underwater. The cover shot of this volume captures Butter Hamlets in a spawning clasp.
 
Much of the work that went into Reef Fish Behavior was conducted in Bonaire's waters, which have been protected as a marine reserve for over four decades. In that reserve, I'll be doing field work (diving, writing, photographing) for a project long in the works, a hybrid collection of poetry and prose called Listening to Fish. The idea is to listen closely to what fish and corals and reef creatures have to tell us about their imperiled environments. In particular, I'll be thinking about the health of the reefs today compared to what I recall from when I first began diving in the 1970s, when dropping down on a reef was like entering a psychedelic circus. Now, of course, many of the world’s reefs are desolate graveyards. I’m hoping conditions in Bonaire aren’t quite so bleak. And I hope whatever work I do can contribute to the preservation and restoration of what remains.
 
In the new collection, I’ll be including “Night Dive,” which originally appeared in the Tule Review back in 2015 (or thereabouts), and then in my book. I think its octopus will fit right in with the other creature encounters, and I hope I meet some of her grandchildren.
 
Night Dive
 
Once on a moonless night 
            I lost my companions.
                        Their beams were bright 
                                    but I’d edged over
 
an outcropping into
            darkness and touched down softly
                        on a rubble ledge
                                    where the wall pulsed
 
with half-hidden forms, eyes 
            on the ends of stalks,
                        spiny feelers testing the current,      
                                    feather dusters
 
vanishing
            in a blink,
                        spaghetti worms retracting.
                                    So sadly familiar--
 
things I desire withdrawing,
            their forms
                        disappearing
                                    the instant
 
I extend a hand.
            The reef folding into itself
                        like a fist. Then,
                                    from the stacks of plate coral,
 
the arm of an octopus slid,
            and another, two more, 
                        reaching
                                    for my fingertips,
 
my palm. The soft sack
            of the octopus followed,
                        inching nearer,
                                    her tentacles 
 
assessing
            the flesh of my wrist,
                        my arm. My heart
                                    pounding. Turquoise pink
                                   
explosions rushing across
            the octopus’s form. At my armpit,
                                    she tucked in,
                                                sliding her arms
                       
around my neck
            and shoulder, her skin
                        becoming
                                    the blue and yellow
 
of my dive skin.
            She stayed with me
                        such a short time,
                                    her eyes,
                                   
those narrow slits,                 
            heavy with trust,
                        and my breath           
                                    so calm, so easy.
                                   
Above,
            my companions
                        banged on their tanks,
                                    summoning me to ascend.
 
How we worry when one slides over
            a ledge. How urgently
                        we admonish the lost ones    
                                    to turn back.