The view out the front door earlier this evening was a rainy one - the jasmine was still blooming and the chaste tree was preparing to bloom. The wooden boat was still safe and dry underneath the tarp. Much needed rain had finally arrived. Later, I walked through the yard, flashlight in hand, while the dogs ran around during a break in the rain. Honestly, I think my perennials have already grown - there's something about rainwater that water from a tap can't compare to - my college roommate Jill called earlier in the evening, and she's always observed the same thing in her work. Perhaps it's the elements (nutrients) that rainwater picks up along the way, or perhaps it's because our tap water has picked up too many nutrients (plus all of those other amendments to fend off microorganisms). Perhaps it's just good karma that the rain carries down from the clouds - whatever it is, it works. You could just imagine all of the plants taking up the much needed water and growing as I walked. The breeze was wonderful too. I heard earlier that a tornado was spotted downtown, off Lockwood Ave, and earlier in the evening a waterspout was heading towards Awendaw. Hopefully the tornadoes are done for the evening, although I expect we're in for another round of warnings soon. How did I prepare for an evening with Tropical Storm Alberto? I purchased a good bottle of wine, of course.
It was a busy day. The grant reviews were submitted on time, I talked with some of my favorite collaborators out at Pearl Harbor, and I picked up my carpet steam cleaner that got repaired free-of-charge because it was still under warranty (a pleasant surprise). I calmed the nerves of an undergraduate in the laboratory who until a week ago had always lived in Wisconsin - and assured her that if it was a storm she had to worry about, that we would take care of her - giving her my cell and home number seemed to relax her. Having lived on the Gulf Coast of Florida and now South Carolina, I sometimes forget that the constant news updates could be stressful to someone without tropical weather experience.
This afternoon in class we talked about all sorts of things, but primarily about coral reef Marine Protected Areas and how they should be managed. One student mentioned a phrase that I had not heard before: "like a screen door on a submarine". This phrase was analogous to the management of marine protected areas - with all of the screen doors, how do you manage it? One article we read discussed the benefits of a scientist-manager while another promoted a business-manager...and we all agreed that neither options were ideal. Finally, a student in the class came up with an excellent idea: Why shouldn't we get a poet to manage marine protected areas?
I couldn't help but think about what poet I would like to manage coral reefs...perhaps Mary Oliver, who writes so beautifully about our natural world? Then there's Louise Gluck - but I'm guessing she's busy being the U.S. Poet Laureate. If I had my choice, I'd have someone channel Pablo Neruda...he wrote often of the sea, and I must agree with the student in my class: wouldn't someone who writes poems about the sea as beautiful as this one be the perfect candidate to manage our seas?
The Sea by Pablo Neruda (from On the blue shore of silence: Poems of the sea)
I need the sea because it teaches me.
I don’t know if I learn music or awareness,
if it’s a single wave or its vast existence,
or only its harsh voice or its shining
suggestion of fishes and ships.
The fact is that until I fall asleep,
In some magnetic way I move in
the university of the waves.
It’s not simply the shells crunched
as if some shivering planet
were giving signs of its gradual death;
no, I reconstruct the day out of a fragment,
the stalactite from a sliver of salt,
and the great god out of a spoonful.
What it taught me before, I keep. It’s air
ceaseless wind, water and sand.
It seems a small thing for a young man,
to have come here to live with his own fire;
nevertheless, the pulse that rose
and fell in its abyss,
the crackling of the blue cold,
the gradual wearing away of the star,
the soft unfolding of the wave
squandering snow with its foam,
the quiet power out there, sure
as a stone shrine in the depths,
replaced my world in which were growing
stubborn sorrow, gathering oblivion,
and my life changed suddenly:
as I became part of its pure movement.
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