Save The Day, A Tidepool Meditation
By Laura Celise Lippman
Published Issue 125, May 2024
Some days, a quiet stillness
pervades Puget Sound’s brooding edge,
rippling, tentative, deep.
I cherish that
piece of peace as
the sea lets me be.
Kelp breathes as it oscillates,
dancing to a hushed melody,
shimmying with the tide.
Small salt pools
are a contrast in motion.
Nothing is still;
tiny forms visible
to the careful eye dart
in seeming random motion.
Shrimps and caprellids
wander with staccato grace
among swaying fronds.
If they settle too long,
they provide a predator’s feast.
In a miracle of survival,
pastel eggs, attached
to eelgrass and sargassum,
persevere.
Even in my quieted state,
I must remain alert
to scan the horizon
for towering dorsal fins
and the lurking encroachment
of fire and smoke.
Laura Celise Lippman has been a physician, a botanist and an aspiring marine biologist in the Pacific Northwest. Much of her poetry is seen through the prism of the natural world. She is co-author of the book, Writing While Masked, Reflections of 2020 and Beyond. Her poems have appeared in Crosswinds, El Portal, New English Review among other publications.