When we first met, South Australia 2015
Dear seals,
I have swum with you in the wild open spaces of the Australian ocean and gazed at you behind the clear glass walls made by man. Your enduring and playful spirit is as wild as the white capped waves dashed across the sea horizon on a windy day. Do you dream about the rapture of the deep or the cold, silent emptiness of the Atlantic? The day I met you, I saw you spinning and twirling like acrobats, your silhouettes spiraled through streamers of swaying seaweed as beams of light pierced the water in abstract wonder.
Do you miss the grit of bone and scales, the sensation of you bloody snouts digging out the flesh of the hunt? There is depth in your history and fascination for your potential. You were once feared and powerful a mythological force from the towering cliffs of Faroe, to the sweeping Orkney Isles. Your identities were Selkie and you shapeshifted from animal to woman, but in the end, you always longed for and vanished to the sea. I heard your howls under the water that day, my head was ringing from the sublime vibrations of your wild hearts. Now you are jovial, playful performers tossing balls and swimming laps for fish, are you vengeful? Don’t lose your fierceness, don’t surrender your spirits, stay hungry for one day the future zoo will be different.
Elle
Dear seals,
I have swum with you in the wild open spaces of the Australian ocean and gazed at you behind the clear glass walls made by man. Your enduring and playful spirit is as wild as the white capped waves dashed across the sea horizon on a windy day. Do you dream about the rapture of the deep or the cold, silent emptiness of the Atlantic? The day I met you, I saw you spinning and twirling like acrobats, your silhouettes spiraled through streamers of swaying seaweed as beams of light pierced the water in abstract wonder.
Do you miss the grit of bone and scales, the sensation of you bloody snouts digging out the flesh of the hunt? There is depth in your history and fascination for your potential. You were once feared and powerful a mythological force from the towering cliffs of Faroe, to the sweeping Orkney Isles. Your identities were Selkie and you shapeshifted from animal to woman, but in the end, you always longed for and vanished to the sea. I heard your howls under the water that day, my head was ringing from the sublime vibrations of your wild hearts. Now you are jovial, playful performers tossing balls and swimming laps for fish, are you vengeful? Don’t lose your fierceness, don’t surrender your spirits, stay hungry for one day the future zoo will be different.
Elle
