THE CARRIER SHELL

Deep in the coral reefs, in a dark

unlike the land's most unstarred night,

beyond quicksilver flickering shoals

of fishes where neither shark

prowls, or porpoises cavort

at the dim yet lustrous feet

of pagodas of albino white

or alizarin crimson corals

wafting in the slow

yet ever expanding diastole

of the unsurfaced sea

among anemones, barnacled debris

fluorescent polyps, bones' filigree

inconspicuous, and in disguise

the carrier shell is found

whether from Darwinian severities

or because, as ethnologist

Adolph Portmann suggests,

nature practises

concious mimesis

it performs a peculiar task

sifting through detritus from

subaquatic latitudes above

for periwinkles, wentletraps

as obscure upon

the ocean floor they drift

incessant search

chiefly unearths

fragments, shards,

these it discards

yet on a signal

occasion,it

may find, complete

a perfect shell

spinning out of its own entrails, then,

an epoxy which can resist

the sea's dilutions, it attaches

to its own carapace, at an exact

interval from the last

such find, the new found prize

the largest of these inevitably is placed

at center; in neatly graduated degrees

are arranged those of diminishing size

upon the outward rim;

nor are there mirrors to admire

this display--or even eyes

in our sense--all this is done

by touch

above these shells patiently gathered

occurs another of anomalous nature's

relationships:

upon the topmost whorl

of the migratory carrier shell

grows a form, half mineral, half-plant

rising lightly, branching out

into a white sea-flower

as if all this eerie creature thought

as through detritus it had sought

perfection, or protective camouflage

had become a kind

of crown.

(1988)