Sixteen Months After Seeing Blacktip Reef Sharks
by Anabella Schofield
I still don’t know how to describe the way light dances
with water, but the internet calls it water caustics.
As otters streamed across their tank like taillights
in a long exposure photo, I tried to photograph them.
All I got was the blur of fur. The reflection of shoes.
In the shark exhibit, water warped as sharp forms cut
their way through a faux ocean, artificial lights painting
everything cerulean and sacred. Holy, the child pointing
at the blacktip reef shark. Holy, the blacktip reef shark.
Holiness, too: the tunnel bearing a shark sky above
strollers and humans and the hum of their languages.
I still cannot articulate the glory of stingray, clouded leopard,
penguin, sloth—nor the grief of time’s flight. Which words are right?
My eternal question. Oh, those Atlas tasks: holding up
the unspoken, resembling the indescribable,
lending voice to the everyday hierophanies.