anthropomorphism

For Will Stewart

 

At first sight it seems as if someone is swimming

too close to the rocks, ignoring the warnings

about the unexpected wash from the ferries

leaving and entering the harbour nearby.

But it is a grey seal’s head that emerges clearly –

then dives, its back almost breaking the surface.

It emerges again further along the rocks,

then dives. Perhaps it is searching the crannies

for crabs and lobsters. It has probably

noticed me, and decided an elderly,

stationary gent, in a panama hat

and cut-offs, well above the rocks poses

no immediate threat to its food stocks

or liberty. Is it presumptuous

to assume grey seals do not reflect

on abstractions – like foolhardiness

and aptitude, freedom and trespass,

and wonder? In northern mythologies

they sometimes shed their skins, become human,

and walk among us. I watch it dive.

 

Much later, after the sun has set

like a furnace, and Saturn and Jupiter

have risen, an ancient piece of cosmic

debris, older than history, long before

time, flares huge, yellow, briefly. And I think

of the seal being a seal.