The Colors of April

The water is freezing

Gray-white waves crash with renewed vigor

on a rocky intertidal

for months as near-dead as the local clam shack

No tourists

Little motion among the boulders

No love

Each morning the sun casts long shadows earlier

lingering longer on the horizon in the afternoon

and slowly the seaweed wakes up

just this side of olive green

mucous-filled bladders swell with anticipation

more mucous-y and bladdery and tinged with orange

The flatworms and nudibranchs rise up in full glory

pale and violet

swords at the ready to fight for dominance

Male lumpfish adorn a crimson hue

hoping their color will entice the ladies

Never does it occur to them that they remain

one of the ugliest fish in the ocean

Black-green lobsters molt and await the sweet embrace

Shed exoskeletons turning red

only after they’ve washed up on the shore and baked in the sun

Horseshoe crabs crawl into the shallows

the color of the mud

with one thing on their minds

Charcoal-backed gulls gather tall grasses

build crude nests for the eggs growing inside them

Whales put every piece of their skeleton to good use

Pastel anemones broadcast their seed far and wide

counting on probability to carry them to a good home

The water froths gray with the foam of spring

with larvae and pollen and the Fucus slime

oozing from the rockweed

Obscure cells wake from their dormancy

and give each other come-hither looks

Winter has gone to bed

The warm winds of change are blowing in on the tides

and everything

(everything!)

is reproducing

in hues seen only these few days

this flush of colors that will give life to the shoreline

tints that will make something new