Seaweed

A Poem by Robert Ronnow

On one of the myriad bays
along the Maine coast. Keep the holocaust
at bay I said to Dave because
you’ll spend all day gathering
2,000 calories and still be miserable hungry.
An undiminished population of humans is risible.

Black spruce and balsam fir,
you can eat the inner bark
in a starvation emergency.
There’s plenty of Cornus--bunchberry--
each orange pith around the stone
worth maybe a quarter calorie.

Lots of sarsparilla but the fruits
not out yet and to date I have not
savored one. Let’s see--dandelion
of course and huckleberry but
the most important source of sustenance
would be seaweed.

Learn your mushrooms! for the protein.
Accept the situation
come the apocalypse.
I struggle against my insignificance
but it would be better to struggle
against my ignorance.

Less effortlessness, more fishermanliness.
That’s the lesson of this Maine vacation
there’s a lot you can eat when in need--
the hips of roses and the pips of grasses.
And an endless supply of seaweed--
bladderwrack, dulse, kelp and thin green lettuce.