64
got the Queen of – Everything – right here The soft of features The small pink tongue that cups at the edges Yes. You know. You right off recognize the raspy waller of an unanswered caller who can and will – – justlikethat – Allllll day (until he gets his always, hungry, way).
Elephant Seal Nursing Godthul Harbor, South Georgia Island © 2019 Mark Seth Lender All Rights Reserved
F
or the lifelong have-no-child-ers, the livealone-ers, the penultimate one-roomdwell-ers waiting for that Bell to Toll; for the married men with a Man Cave in the cellar who’ve never ever changed a diaper - even for them - the sound of this Sounder is as Family and Familiar as a Come on over and bring the kid, the young’un, your new baby! Boy! She’s got a set a lungs, gonna sing the whole La, La Traviata a regular concertina you just wanna squeeze her we’ve
Newborn Baby Elephant Seal raises a tireless commotion loud as the Soundings of the Southern Ocean. Baby’s Mamma? She just wants to sleep. Respite and relief don’t stand a chance against the Need That Will Not Keep. She gives in, and slides her wide webbed hand of a flipper off the teat, that her own may take of rich… warm… drink. Now before us all the stages, hauled out along the shoreline the quickly passing ages, parents and their young, the newborn and the old they will become, the needful and the needed, the suckling and the satisfaction that justifies All this: To our surprise – - We recall - We recognize (As the Flower Knows the Seed) That Baby in the Babe we used to be.
