Jeff Key

Gualala— The Omniscient Gyre

Gualala—a Northern California town located on the coast. The name is derived from the Kashaya Pomo “ah kha wa la lee— where the water flows down.”

Gyre—a large system of circular ocean currents formed by global wind patterns and forces created by the Earth's rotation.

It’s a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, 

should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. 

But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, 

will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself.”

—Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us, Marine Biologist, Environmental Writer

June 8^th was World Oceans Day. As we move into summer, grab our towels, boogie boards, and head for the beach, it’s time to think about the world’s oceans and how to preserve these natural wonders.

From the rise in the sea level due to global warming to agricultural pesticides and sewage run off, oil spills, air pollution, acidification, overfishing, and the Earth’s garbage, the oceans are under barrage.

The ocean is the largest ecosystem on Earth—it is the planet's life support system. Oceans generate half of the oxygen we breathe and, at any given moment—they contain more than 97% of the world's water.

Gualala

I kissed the fog’s lips,

cold breath of goldenrod and lupine

parted to reveal weather-worn cuspids,

milled from a sore-knuckled, arthritic cypress,

caught in the rise and fall of the omniscient gyre.

A cacophony of silence:

salt licking stone,

pollen drifting,

bubbles burrowing,

all moving with the precision of a finely tuned ensemble.

A well-seasoned fiddler crab seizes the first movement,

summoning the swell of a crescendo

before surrendering the rondo to a clawed sea spider

flailing its eight finely tuned limbs

as the tide unfurls the final curtain.

I tasted the sky’s intransigence,

swallowing the banter between gale and luster.

An irascible squall stakes its claim on a promontory,

hovering at the continent’s edge.

Tributaries, branches and bluffs locked in a furtive embrace

don shimmering gowns of blue-green algae

before rushing into the sea—

drawn by the call of  a peripatetic wave.

                                                      —Jeff Key

• Ocean acidification, sometimes called “climate change’s equally evil twin,” is a consequence of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that we don't see or feel because its effects are happening underwater. This condition is causing coral reefs throughout the world to dissolve.

• Since the beginning of the industrial era, the ocean has absorbed some 525 billion tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere, presently around 22 million tons per day.  (source: Ocean Portal Team—Smithsonian Museum of Natural History)

• The Great Pacific Garbage patch floating between California and Hawaii is now over 600,000 square miles or about twice the size of Texas. It includes over 1.8 trillion pieces of garbage, and weighs 88,000 tons—the equivalent of 500 jumbo jets.       (source:  theoceancleanup.com)