The fifth day

(And the fear of you and the dread of you
shall be upon every beast of the earth...)

A strange song haunts the sea;
not in shallow places, where the crab
scuttles and the starfish strands,
but in the dark green lightless depths of ocean.
          In its rise and fall you hear a
          lamentation for the passing of so many -
so many dead; so many graceful singers
dragged, slashed and bloody, from their element,
made clumsy, dumb, great lifeless hulks of
property.
          And yet the song mourns more
          than just the singers' kin;
in its theme is woven all the horror of the earth,
all the terror of the hunted, every helpless
cry of pain.

If that song grows quieter now, do not
imagine that the slaughter has diminished -
the singers have diminished.

( to the contents page.)