Welcome to Poetry Friday, hosted today by Tabatha Here. Thank you so much for hosting, Tabatha, and I look forward to what you and everyone has to offer us this week. I know it will warm up the cold here in Upstate New York.
I have been reading, as it’s the best way for me to get new ideas, to go beyond my world. This week I read a fascinating book entitled EELS, by James Prosek.
Actually it’s the second time I read it because it’s about a fish that has an amazing life cycle which I appreciate as I grew up on a river known for eels.
When I was a child I went fishing in the Delaware River with my brother and pulled one of these out of the water. Needless to say I was not drawn to this creature. It was as scary to look at as it was harmless. And I discovered they tasted good deep fried.
But now this freshwater eel, scientific name, Anguilla Rostata, is endangered, mostly because of hydroelectric dams in rivers. Also, there is a tremendous appetite for eel in countries outside the U.S. It is considered delicious in Japan, and has become extremely expensive to eat. (For some reason, the taste of eel has never caught on in America.) There are efforts to grow eels artificially, though it’s slow going.
Eel are catadromous fish, which means they are born in salt water yet grow to adulthood in freshwater. So that requires that the tiniest eels, ride the sea currents to coastlines where they swim up freshwater rivers. Thus: the following poem.
THE AMERICAN EEL In the middle of Atlantic Ocean, in the Sargasso Sea, thousands and thousands of baby eel are hatched in salt water. tiny and see-through as glass, they float and swim the ocean currents, heading to the North American coastline, to find freshwater. They find a river and follow it into the continent, living on clams, fish and frogs for five to thirty years more or less they grow. until one day as if something calls to them, they head back down that river. No one knows exactly why, but eels always return to their birthplace, the Sargosso Sea. The females lay eggs. The males fertilize them. Soon, thousands of new baby eel wiggle along the currents back to the coastline, to find a river. Where they will grow, and return again someday to the waters where they were born. © Janice Scully 2022
Just for their remarkable determination, Eel deserve our respect and protection in spite of their slithery, slimy appearance.
After reading about eels, readers, you deserve something more beautiful, so I will end with this collage postcard from Margaret Simon that arrived in the mail.
“Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.” E. Dickenson.
And this poem:
A new year
new ideas
growing buds
to find a garden
already blooming.
by Margaret Simon
May you all add to whatever is already blooming in your artistic gardens. Thank you, Tabatha for hosting this week’s Poetry Friday.