Seals (Iona)

No angels listen when you cry out here,
but seals rise up to see, and criticize
perhaps, as you intone the omega
(their favourite vowel) or the medical alpha
(sticking your tongue out) for these gods of ocean.

Words wouldn’t do. There are no consonants
in the mouths of seals. They can appreciate
only the modified howl, the growly roar,
and perhaps the loudest purr a man can make.
It’s not the singing; that just summons them.

It’s curiosity that makes them stand
in the water on their useless feet, to stare
at the creature with two tails, unnaturally split
beside its genitals, the loose skin, the weed
that seems to be an ornament on the head.

But when we sing to them, they hear pure sound
without the situation for a howl:
we’re standing still. What do we mean by this?
They listen to the birth of music, baffled,
moved, by the meaningless familiar vowels.