The Lake Sturgeon

Four feet long and knobby as a dinosaur,
the dead fish stops me in my tracks.
This is Lake Ontario,
why is there a prehistoric creature in my path?
My heart races as I stand and gaze,
the lonely beach stretching, the waves lapping.
The lens of the fish’s eye stares at me
and I stare back.
I have never in my life met a fish like this.
I didn’t know fish like this lived here,
and I have lived here sixty years.
My shoes are already off.
Something is happening,
something I will carry with me
for the rest of my life.

Later, searching the web,
I identify the Lake Sturgeon,
an ancient fish, now endangered
but once common in these parts.
Eight feet long and good for eating,
we hunted them nearly to extinction
over a century ago.
Now our pollution kills them
before they mature;
humans are especially toxic
to bottom feeders.
We are this creature’s enemy.

And so I sing to you, you mighty Lake Sturgeon:
hear my long-awaited message of peace.
We are composed, you and I,
of the same water of life,
we are created by the same God.
You belong to the wilderness of water,
yours from the beginning of time.
I see only the edges, the surface
but we are connected by the drains
I walk over every day,
by the sewers, by the effluent pipes
of the factories that make things I use.
My plastic floats on your home,
my microbeads penetrate your flesh
and your gills breathe water
tainted by chemicals made for me.
Your body is your word to us,
your word made flesh
that no longer dwells among us.
I sing this in remembrance of you.
I hear your message from the deep,
written on the beach at my feet.
Every day, this Lake Sturgeon
swims in my memory:
how can I keep from singing?.