Something Fishy...

The way we treat the seal
Is really quite unreal
Some may say
That our dismay
Is tangible and real
For seals are just a sample
Of our failure to lead
By example,


Consider any affected creature
And remember what God teaches…
Then reflect on how we fail
In the main
Against the possibility
Of financial gain

Ask us why
We don’t prevail
When it comes to
Saving the whale?

We club the friendly dolphin
We tear the fins from shark
And we’re disinclined to
View such facts
Because they are too stark

Our global warming attitudes
Are killing polar bears
But it’s hard to really find anyone
Who show they really care…

If there’s nothing else to absorb us,
We stand by
as they butcher the tortoise
No reason to be particularly sanguine
When we’ve already abandoned the penguin
But we perpetuate the lie
And spin a happy tome
While melting ice
Destroys their home…

And when nobody’s paying attention
There’s no reason for intervention
So, before our eyes, the Cod is gone
Without so much as a speech
Or a song!....

Moreover, The flounder is under stress
But can hardly express
What industrial fishing does
To habitat
When it’s been going on so long
It’s already old hat!

We say, “Isn’t that sad…
In our cavalier fashion
Without the necessary passion
That on the menu,
nowhere is listed the shad…”
Shallow as that sounds
It resonates with those
Who buy fish by the pound…

We dump toxins on the krill
And then wonder why the fishing’s nill…
We pollute the waters
At every turn
And then wonder why
The fish don’t return…

Are we dull or merely mad
To ignore what’s before our nose
Or are we too preoccupied
To expose
All of these abuses
That stare us in the face
And we blandly do nothing
This condition to erase…

You would think
That men of good will
Would rise up
And end this orgy
And help restore
the flat fish and the porgy
If for no other reason
Than just the halibut…
And then think well of it…

Our eyesight is myopic
To treat the north like the tropic
Our failure to intervene
Is really quite obscene
But then they ask quite obliquely
“Is it meretricious,
If we only do that which is nutritious

“Or are we within our right
To stand by
And observe the blight”—A
Question of great consternation
For its impact
On the crustacean

We ponder so about such questions drab
And in the end wonder
How such decisions
Will affect the taste
Of the blue claw crab

We ponder out in the rivers and bays
And wonder about our thoughtless ways
And hardly one sheds a tear
As all the shellfish disappear
And realize it’s just our way
To care less about things
Until they go away…

And then bemoan our fate
When there’s no
Tasty sea creature on our plate
And we find it hardly credible
That nothing left for us is edible…

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon