The (late) Sunday Poem
It's about the Moulting Elephant Seal Emerson
Here on the far western shore of Canada, we get a yearly influx during April and May of a herd of elephant seals who come on land to moult. They stay for about a month and science calls this ungainly and often unpleasant process ‘catastrophic’ because the seal loses all its fur and its skin. This being Victoria, we have ‘adopted’ and named one seal who, after being found on a sidewalk and then transported back to a remote bay, returned promptly and is now ensconced in his own enclosure on a local beach. Watched by an official who makes sure that nobody tries to kiss him or, in case he needs to be removed, hoists Emerson on a specially built contraption and deposits him in a place proper for a moulting elephant seal. We do love our wildlife here and I am so impressed by all that I had to pen a poem about Emerson and how he is related to us. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
THE MOULTING
You and I we moult /little bits come off every day
but it is not the way/of Emerson the elephant seal
He is Victoria’s own and/he loves it here/ and
Once every year/he sheds his fur and his skin
resembling a very large potato left too long in/boiling water
It’s rough and he is also fasting/nothing to eat/losing everything
that makes him look sleek
It’s not easy being an elephant seal/but hey
they’re extremists/that’s their deal/either on land entirely or
in the depths of the sea/either feasting or fasting or shedding
Emerson’s a lot like us/minus the bedding
Our named/tagged/official megafauna/ is moulting on local sidewalks
shameless and in full view of tourists
he got under our skin and now it’s too late
Emerson is our mascot/ our symbol of dealing
he is not leaving/it’s cool/and somehow
revealing
Moulting is such a useful metaphor
in a world of raw and thin/thin skinned people/
hurting as strips of outworn selves/ideas/convictions
are peeling away, a painful process/day by day
something is lost and something is gained
during these moulting renovictions/we suffer cracks
and rashes/as we rise from the ashes
we got goosebumps and hair-raising dangers
we’re dying of thirst
like Emerson/seeking the comfort of strangers
How do we feel/it’s too soon to tell/too much anger to quell
first
Soon we’ll be on Tik Tok with Emerson/everyone/ jumping over the Moon
that’s the tell
watch how our tender skinned savage selves turn tough
as we lumber towards something rough
until the next season of moulting/when all will be well &
when we/won’t be/in hell