Incubated
in your father’s pouch,
two hundred born over a few days,
some less than the length
of a fingernail,
you are such fragile trembling things,
such slender horses.
Tiny fins beating,
thirty times every second,
you are all mating for life
surrounded by danger
and polluted worlds.
Cowering in coral reefs and mangroves,
taken for mere souvenirs
and man’s crazed schemes,
twenty million of you are lost every year.
Tiny heartbeats,
please hold on tight
to the whispering sea-grass.
This grieving world,
this messed up planet,
needs your precious sensitivity,
needs your watery beauty
more than ever.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
