My mouth crammed with a rubber snorkel,
four dolphins cruised me
in a canal of the Florida Keys Research Station.
Before I entered, the marine biologist said,
“You’re in their world so be fascinating and fun.”
Black eyes, opal bellies, huge bodies
twirled out of the murk.
So close. So fast.
I fought my dread of deep water,
tried not to flail, envied their agility.
One slapped the snorkel from my mouth with its head
as if to say, Don’t worry about air.
We were fish once, free from gravity;
our inner ear, the remnants of gills.
Hands imply striving, manipulation.
Is that why dolphins went back to fins?
Do they watch us struggle against
our gradual compression of liquid and bone into dust?
Perhaps their eerie sounds are paeans for the choice to re-submerge.
___
Leisha Douglas holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from The Union Institute, M.A. M.Ed. in counseling psychology from the Teachers’ College of Columbia University, and an M.A. in communications from Fairfield University. As a professional psychotherapist and part-time yoga teacher, she is blessed to help others in their deeply intimate, personal explorations. She has worked in a private psychotherapy practice for over twenty years and has served as a staff member of Cap Juluca’s Mind Body Spirit Program in Anguilla, British West Indies.
From 2001 to 2010, she codirected the Katonah Poetry Series with former Poet Laureate Billy Collins and currently serves as poetry consultant to the series committee. She designed and coproduced a poetry program for local high schools called Poetry Live from 2002 to 2004. In 1994, she placed second in the “Grand Dame” short story contest co-sponsored by The New Yorker and Veuve Clicquot. Her chapbook, The Season of Drunken Bees, received special mention in The Comstock Review’s Niles 2009 Chapbook Competition. Her poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Ghoti, Ginbender Poetry Review, and Hakomi Forum.
Posted by Leif.
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Friday, December 30th, 2011 1:54 pm
Categories: Current: 5.4, Poetry
