THE
B I O L O G Y
OF THE
THE CUTTING EDGE OF WHAT WE KNOW
ABOUT THE SCIENCE OF BIOLOGY
AND THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY
Notably
A broad shallow shelf past Alameda
Deeper water off of San Francisco
1.
Fish
In 1968 a chemist on a houseboat in Sausalito
dumped a vat of Purple Haze into the Bay
These crustaceans remain psycho-active to this day,
When acid rock is played near their tank
They dance and have sex
I'm going to grow fins,
And go back into the water again
Fish arrive daily on extra-planetary ships,
Sadly, some are not even edible
Sorry flounder,
We eat you
The mysterious ways of seafood
Take place mostly unobserved,
Right under our nose-plugs
This fish buries its tail in the gravel
In order to better attack the tender bits
of the other fish swimming past
When he does of course,
All hell breaks loose
As a general rule it is fair to say,
Fish are very rude in their behavior
2.
Flora
Prehistoric plant-life abounds in the Bay Area
A walkway into the Bay in Alameda
Submerged at high tide,
When the tide goes out again
A nutrient-rich film coats the walk
In winter months seeds germinate in it
Surviving the wan sunlight seaweed grows
The entire walk gleams green
Berkeley Marina
The Flaneur has spent hours,
At rest beneath this whispering pine
Scotch thistle tough enough to grow anywhere,
A cliff over the Pacific
Hardy flowerettes
Stand-up to the cold fog
Time out of mind
Land's End
3.
Insecta
An industrious bumble bee works the clover,
A lawn in the Marina right on the Bay
4.
Avifauna
Quail a lovely gentle bird
I have encountered them in the wild
Only due to my quiet, contemplative gait
Vast flocks follow along the shoreline,
They come in waves
Passing this point at a mad velocity
In November
Coots are a dime a dozen
Seagulls you always have with you
Exquisite snowy egrets fish,
Zen-like in the Oakland estuary
Cormorants take turns bathing
A seagull looks on suspiciously
Pelicans, cormorants, and others
Nest on this strange storybook isle
Great blue heron brooding
Almost absurd at times
Perfectly adapted to life
on the San Francisco bay
5.
Fauna
Elks in great numbers
Once rose up out of the Bay
Apparently at one time
there were a great many of these animals around
-- California smilodons
California Sea Lions
Were land-loving dog-bears
long ago
Whales inhabited the wide waters of the Bay,
Today they appear only when
their geo-location instinct goes awry
Spaniards are said to have brought the first horses
Sometimes non-native animals
fare better than the local critters,
In cypress trees by the sea
6.
Human Beings
Unlimited consciousness,
emotion and sensitivity,
Swims in the sunset,
Crab Cove, Crown Beach in Alameda
Lake Merritt, Oakland
Cordonices park, Berkeley Marina, UC Berkeley
Pier 39, Maritime park, Land's End, and Zoo
in San Francisco
2011-2014
