NVN Thursday: Losing Wildlife in 2 Poems
BLINK by Maxine Susman and WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN FISH FORGET? by Mary K O’Melveny
by Maxine Susman
Fireflies may disappear, so NY scientists are trying to count how many are left. —The Gothamist, August 22, 2023
*
They don’t light the lawn as they used to. They don’t light up my brain. As a kid I’d cup my hands into a lantern and catch a dozen or more at a time, they were so tame they glowed through my fingers, lit my hands and then the jar I filled with them, the dotted love songs of bugs— then I’d set them free to speckle the summer grass. Remember on the mountain how fireflies rose high as the trees, spread a yellow Milky Way— and the meadow we named Fireflyworks Hill where fireflies at dusk outnumbered wildflowers. Remember when they arrived each year to kindle our brains, they’d set our neurons firing, rising like wishes through the summer doldrums. This year as each year their numbers dwindle. I see one or two flittering solitary, no one to answer, to answer to, be lit for.
*
Maxine Susman, from central New Jersey, has published seven poetry collections, with poems in journals such as Paterson Literary Review, Fourth River, Earth’s Daughters, Crab Orchard Review, Slant, and Canary. She teaches poetry at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of Rutgers University.
*
by Mary K O’Melveny
This summer, Florida’s ocean water temperatures exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A recent scientific study revealed that rising water temperatures can cause crucial memory loss to damsel fish and other reef-dwelling species. The fish in the study who were subjected to temperatures as high as F 89.6 did not fare well, failing “to find shelter, recognize their neighbors or find food easily.” —The New York Times, August 23, 2023
*
As Fahrenheit rose, some damsel fish forgot where to find their food sources. With each degree, memories shifted far away. First to go: finding a meal. Next was fear. Who posed a threat. Where danger lay. Which reefs might safely hide them, what might portend trouble in sargassum seas or bubble upward in their pathways turning marbles of algae into floating spectral groupers or snappers. As memory fluttered away like flotsam, reef fish failed to thrive, survive. Each day’s heightened heat seared off some tiny thought, some echo that time had taught, some souvenir of before. Yesterday’s cache of jeweled thoughts scattered now into a vast void. Who can ever truly know what is lost as heat sears, scalds? As oceans warm, equal risk befalls both predators and prey. Who will remain alive as seas simmer and pale coral reefs blanch white as brides? Will these warmed fish discard scales of azure, sapphire, magenta, or wispy tails of sunshine yellow, peachy orange? Will they recall where eggs were laid or where sharks stayed hidden as reefs shrank? What tales will they recount as awareness shapeshifts, then fades away like images in an infinity mirror? As they spin through steamy waters, adrift in the present tense, our questions float along beside them. Will we have a future? What flashbacks will follow Fukishima?
*
Mary K O’Melveny, a retired labor rights lawyer, lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York. Mary’s award-winning poetry has appeared in many print and on-line literary journals and anthologies and on national and international blog sites, including The New Verse News. Mary’s much-praised fourth book of poetry Flight Patterns was published by Kelsay Books in August 2023. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Mary was a finalist in the 2023 Poetry Competition sponsored by Slippery Elm Literary Journal. She is also a co-author of two anthologies of writing by The Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group, including Rethinking The Ground Rules (Mediacs Books 2022).