It is Easter Sunday and the wind is easterly: cold and inescapable. The sight of gannets slamming into the sea made me think of crucifixion. I tried to think how it might feel to be a mackerel too. What would it make of an air creature being suddenly there in its world of water? How would it understand its symbiotic transformation into a being that soars and sees the whole world spread out below it?
Easterly
The bay is full of wind,
easterly and no shelter.
The fantastic
chop of waves
in bright Easter sunshine,
and something else
just offshore-
gannets by the dozen
soar up and slam
sudden white spears
into the side of the sea.
The shocking intrusion
of another world,
the silent panicked flight,
blood in the water.
What do mackerel know
of their own dark tell-tale
seen from above
like a cloud’s shadow?
Their blueblack
dazzle stripes
have an inkling.
In the mythology
of mackerel
this is the eschaton
of terrible whiteness,
the incomprehensible
transfiguration into blue
immeasurable space,
and the awful
transmutation of form
in the unmediated
warmth of the sun.
Easter Sunday
21 April 2019