An Abecedarian Plea to Return to the Sea

NaPoWriMo April 10: “Today, write your own meditation on grief…” Good grief! What a way to start the day…

An Abecedarian Plea to Return to the Sea
by Elizabeth Boquet

Assuming we evolved from fish, after this life of mine on land,

but before the end of my time as a being on Earth, I’m

counting on my personal reverse evolution back to the sea toward

death. May my non-

existence be like it was before the Big Bang of my birth.

Forgotten will be everyone and everything I cherish in order to

get on with my last stab at life. Surely in the sea. Maybe as a seal,

happiest riding the wildest white of the waves,

in love with the fathoms, fearless, hobnob and bobbing with

jellyfish, just a floating

kid in nighttime’s effervescence.

Like I said, this is only

my reverse evolution into

nothingness—into my own

oblivion. I pray to be fair game,

predator, and prey, in the

quell of the swells,

right up to that inevitable day when I’ll slip my flippers

sidesaddle for that last ride

to the heretofore

unwitnessed, ultimate, unfurling

Valhalla—not for Vikings but a black hole for poets

with timeless peace, where no

X needs correction or marks any spot, and

you don’t have to worry about any Peters or Pearly gates or 

zeitgeber*.

*Zeitgeber, In biology, it refers to any cyclical, recurring even, like the changing of the seasons or the rising and setting of the sun, that provides an organism with a natural timeframe or cue.