Aquatic Observations

Sorry, I know it's April 1st, but this isn't a post regarding pranks, although I'm feeling like I might write about one later this week.

Last Thursday, another teacher and I hauled about 75 students on a field trip to the Living Planet Aquarium in Draper. We endured a short class on shark biology and then were left to wander the exhibits the rest of the time. True to my form, there were no mind-numbing worksheets required, but we did require them to write and share their writing in small groups. If you have never participated in a Walk and Write activity, you need to. I'll post the directions another time. It's awesome, even if you do not consider yourself a writer.

As a supervisor, and not a parent chaperon, I did not have to keep any particular students with me, but I still took the time to write as I wandered through the Utah river systems, Antarctica, and the Amazon. The following is a poem that I pieced together (in rough draft). As of now, it remains title-less. Any suggestions you may have in that department would be appreciated. Also, any other feedback, positive or negative, congratulatory or critical, would be welcomed.

Fish aren’t the only entities drifting and

swimming in circles

in this over-priced, overly-trendy aquarium—

Just ask the disheveled kindergarten teacher whose

students, now nametag-less, run amok,

matting their grubby jelly-stained mitts to every surface

despite the strictly-dictated but

highly-unenforced chaperone-to-student ratio.

Ask the gum-smacking, part-time employee, who,

Earbuds donned, polo shirt damp, schleps along

with a walkie-talkie clipped to her belt,

a sloshing bucket of diluted glass cleaner  in one hand,

a fingerprint-and-blowfish-killing squeegee in the other.

Ask the tottering, frolicking otters to-ing and fro-ing, who

churn their pool and their audience with their

topsy-turvy tumbling, their tagging and swagging, and

imitating the not-very-water-tight-or-furry two-legged

playthings stomping and shrieking on the other side of the glass.

Ask the placidly oblivious jellies, undulating serenely, whose

mesmerizing spell of floating phosphorescence,

pulsates fiber optic tendrils, captivating over-busy passers-by,

slowing the ragged rhythm of the traffic’s bustle

for one tranquil heartbeat, a pause between the penguins and the pufferfish.

Ask that monstrous, motionless moray, who

haunts his cave, maw dangling in a stupor that may be mistaken for mindlessness,

Yellow-blue eye silently, sagaciously laughing at the swirling tide of humanity,

Observing the mixing and meandering crowds,

Creating poetry without motion.