This little critter arrived in my e- Inbox yesterday. She looks wary to me; a wistful queen bundled up in her ocean floor sleeping bag.
Apparently water temperatures dropped down to 9 degrees F in Florida Keys this winter - not cold by Antarctic standards but - if you're a semi-tropical creature - reason enough to burrow in till little more than your eyes are showing? Researchers are suggesting that 'at this stage' it looks as though more damage has been done to benthic (bottom-dwelling) creatures in the Keys by the uncharacteristic cold than by the still-seeping oil. But tests are still being done. Results have yet to come in. One thing is certain... the chemical dispersants that have been poured into the sea are (yet another) grave mistake and long-term effects on ocean life are guaranteed and far-reaching.
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I can't help wondering... if she could speak (in a language we could hear), what might this conch say?
I think she's saying, "Oh dear." I find saying Oh Dear helps when in despair. And heavy sighs. I am a prolific sigher. I think Queen Conchy is too.
ReplyDeleteI think she might bear it without comment...stoic and making the best of a bad situation. I think each of us, whatever species, has had to learn to live adaptively. We just have no way of knowing what we will become.
ReplyDeleteDear Kay & Marylinn...
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of the following paragraph after reading your comments today. It's in one of my all-time favourite books, "What is Life" by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan (this is one of 'those' books that gets moved from bedside table to studio on an almost daily basis), ...
"... Life is planetary exuberance, a solar phenomenon. It is the astronomically local transmutation of Earth's air, water and sun into cells. It is an intricate pattern of growth and death, dispatch and retrenchment, transformation and decay... Life is matter gone wild, capable of choosing its own direction in order to indefinitely forestall the inevitable moment of thermodynamic equilibrium - death. Life is also a question the universe poses to itself in the form of a human being... "
I'm not sure I can add anything to that, except to acknowledge your conch's understandable sighs, Kay - and your queen's stoical acceptance, Marylinn. And I do agree with what you say about us having had to learn to live adaptively, Marylinn - not knowing what we might become. It's all a bit of a mystery, really.
L, C