IMAGE:  

SETTING: In a dimly lit, rundown independent bookshop-café at the edge of a industrial 
         section of a small city in Japan, a cold salty northern wind was blowing.  Inside, the air 
         smelled of aging parchment, burnt coffee, and fresh green tea. A single bamboo 
         lantern hung above a mismatched circle of odd chairs. A dozen regulars have dragged 
         those chairs into a loose ring as a poetry reading begins. One aged woman with
         long grey hair in a sweater several sizes too big begins to read this poem:

MANTA RAYS: A Maritime Musing

With fluid, wavelike grace,
you glide through warm indigo waters—
smooth, silent, your softs flaps pulse, 
in slow-motion wingbeats, creating 
hypnotic, mantra-like rhythms
in toccatas of symmetry 
against an abyss 
in silent, hypnotic 
blue.

		She then closes her notebook slowly as several persons sip tea carefully while 
		others fiddle nervously, unsure what to say about the mediocre poem from a person
		they know well and respect.

Ellesha:   (pausing briefly, with a fragile smile as a breath of relief escapes her) 
            I find it refreshing to hear a poem free from the weight of any political agendas! 
            This is a delightful retreat from morality, a bane of many eco-poems.
           
Jules:     (raising a skeptical eyebrow, his gaze sharpening slowly) Look closer, Elle. 
           This extols one theme—the beauty of the manta—while deliberately ignoring its appetite. 
           Mantas are essentially feeding funnels vacuuming for whatever drifts in.
           The choice to sanitize the subject and to airbrush is hunger disingenuous.
           And omission, chérie, is always political. Isn't convenient to overlook such
           harsh realities?

Philyra:  (pushing a lock of hair from her face with a weary sandpaper voice) Perhaps Jules is right. 
          We must learn to see everything as political: the expensive, ethically dubious 
          coffee we drink, the silence we keep, the brands we wear, and, naturally, the
          crap we write—or refuse to write about. There's no neutral shoreline or exit door 
          from the stage while we are breathing.

Andrei:   (sprawling deeper into his chair, waving dismissively) You take things too far. 
          Soapbox discourses are boring. Why worry about marine creatures doing what's natural
          for them? Instead, why not just enjoy a cool beer? (taking a long, slow unapologetic 
          sip of Genesee Light.) Politics is just noise in our heads. I’m more interested in 
          simple pleasures unburdened by vacuous intellectualizations.

Ellesha:  (leaning back, a fragile melancholy flickering in her eyes) I see Andrei's point.
          When we dissect everything as power plays, something precious is lost. Maybe we 
          need to shed our anxiety, stop performing, and just be—truly non-political.

Jules:    (a sharp, percussive laugh) Ah, non! We are naturally political animals. 
          Hierarchy is the ocean we swim in; some of us ride the current, others get sent
          to the bottom at the become and become lunch. Pretending otherwise is the luxury 
          of those already near the top of the food chain.
          
Soo:     (entering with a playful rap inflection) And ah… those in powaa, they don’t 
          want us to know that. They loooove when you stay “non-political.” They keep you 
          distracted with pretty wings and cheap beer, while vacuuming the whole sea for
          themselves. They thrive on your distraction, yeah! Look at Donald Trump: he was a 
          master of distraction, deception, and obfuscation.

Elijah:   Soo is right: Distraction is the oldest power move in the book. (pausing briefly
          and gazing at the condensation on the windows in the shop) Perhaps the only compass 
          that matters is: what do you truly hunger for? Notice where your awareness drifts 
          when no one is watching. That should be our true north. Fret not over others; 
          the waves of time will soon forget them, and us as well.

=====================================================================================
from _Let the waters be my witness: Messages about our watery world_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY:  Some thoughts about the tension between the allure of artistic escapism 
          and the inherent political realities of existence.
KEYWORDS: marine poetry, devil fish, ocean ballets, manta ray poem, underwater dances, nature poetry
          devilfish, elasmobranch, manta birostris, mobulinae, devil rays, filter-feeders, societal norms

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1997 in Shizuoka, Japan / Finished: 2025 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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TRANSLATIONS

ESPAÑOL:  https://www.tnewfields.info/es/corri.htm
NIHONGO:  https://www.tnewfields.info/jp/seijuku.htm