The sea

If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

from ‘At the Fishhouses’ by Elizabeth Bishop

Image: Earth 100 million years from now

Fragile and vast

I felt genuine dismay that we had to leave. But it was not a place where people could stay for more than fleeting visits. We had gained a glimpse into a whole other wild world that seemed both fragile and vast; beyond us but also at our mercy. Decisions being made by politicians and petroleum industry geologists will, in the coming months, decide the long-term future of Bremer Bay’s killer whale aggregation. 

— report from Bremer Canyon by James Woodford

Image: Alamy