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(for
two Henrys, Thoreau and Beston)
We call transient
meat-eaters, "Bad Boys."
They patrol
shorelines for Steller Sea Lions
or Harbor
Seals, land-sneaking, pup-snatching,
playfully
ripping, tearing, batting fresh
meat to pieces.
Listening carefully,
they slither
by drowning granite mountains,
preying for
a rare falling mountain goat,
or perhaps
a swimming black bear or moose.
Fish-eating residents,
the friendly ones,
travel in
pods led by their matriach,
perhaps great-grandmother
to every one.
They break
into family groups, packs like wolves,
hunting wild
salmon, echolocating.
Sometimes
many pods create superpods,
They line
up facing each other, foreplay,
clicking,
squeek-moaning, ritual mating.
We flatter ourselves
if we believe we
had once to
lose the senses they possess.
Brethren to
some, underlings to others,
life pasturing
freely where we humans
rarely wander
to those who lean on rails
from tour
boats and gush over each tail lob,
spy hop or
breach. They should be so lucky,
fellow prisoners
in life’s timeless net.
Moving finished
and complete, an ancient
saline world,
inferno and paradise,
these pelagic
demons extend their sight,
touch, hearing,
speech, aware of benthic
voices beyond
landlocked understanding.
They are not
our brothers, are not our slaves.
In truth,
they are other undiscovered
Orca nations,
light years beneath our decks.
--
Doug Capra
The
author teaches writing and history for the Kenai Peninsula College,
and also is a park ranger for the Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska.
He has also penned the foreword to "Wilderness" by Rockwell
Kent, an author and artist that he’s written about extensively.
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