Octopus Houses
OK. It’s still February. It’s still only the first half of February. But if you are in the northeastern part of the US, the gray of winter may be starting to close in on you. I need a change of scenery. Maybe you do, too. If so, Octopus Houses may provide that, however briefly. Despite the mention of octopus in the title, the poem is about sea otters, particularly those located on the Big Sur California coast, where, presumably, they are getting a bit better weather than Ohio is receiving this week.
It is the easy year-round access to spectacular outdoor scenery that I miss most about living in the San Francisco Bay area. Being able to get to Monterey Bay easily, walk the trails at Point Lobos State Reserve, and see the rest of the amazing Big Sur area was great.
If you are interested in further information on sea otters, you can check out these resources including this live web cam feed from the Monterery Bay Aquarium otter exhibit. If you happen to catch one of the posted feeding or training times, turn on the sound on your device so you can hear the caretaker’s discussion, too.
Sea otters are one of the Endangered Species making a comeback due to diligent effort to protect their habitat and enhance public understanding. They make a naturally adorable ambassador for environmental protection generally–kids and adults alike can identify with the loss they would be if we fail to be good ecological stewards.
Octopus Houses
All morning the sea otter dives
and returns to the surface,
two beer cans at a time
clutched to her chest, water
on her pink nose reflecting the sun.
Bobbing belly-up, she rips
each can open. They are softer
than mussels, easier than abalone
to harvest. She scoops each delicate
squirming morsel from its can,
eating slowly. Two tentacles
wrap around the otter’s snout
even as the other six travel
to her gut. When finished, she drops
each can back into the kelp bed —
perhaps not from carelessness,
the way it was first tossed to the sea —
but out of what might be hope
that the can will be refilled, will house
another meal another day.
Octopus Houses captures a place & time–but where does it go from here?
Whether we like it or not, we are changing the environment all the time. And it responds to us — slowly or quickly, adapting or not. Naturally adaptive creatures like the octopus will use a beer can or other debris as a temporary home, if need be. Naturally curious and creative otters are willing to pry a meal from a can rather than from abalone. It is impossible for human kind to not impact the world around us.
The question is whether the future we project forward from any particular point is full of relatively gentle, manageable impacts or a future causing changes from which some parts of the natural world cannot adapt and recover.
Octopus Houses first appeared in Spring Harvest, California State Polytechnic, Pomona, 1993, and also appears in my collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves.
Have a great week!