The Octopus
Charismatic, but still just a mollusk
Squirting ink into ocean’s blue dusk.
They say that they are as smart as dogs
With sharpness inside the primitive cogs
Of the nine brains ringed around their throats.
Watch how one slithers off of a boat
Strategically, then away it goes
With the great gush its siphon blows
And how it flies, legs trailing behind.
But we know nothing about their minds.
Their lives are short, their parents die.
They learn from scratch, but by and by
They will commune in a sunlit pool
Where their elders will explain the rules
And the pleasures of identity.
All the ideas now flowing free
Will settle inside, next to their ink
And they will become the cerebral link
To a muscular culture of beaks and eggs--
A civilization on eight suckered legs.
Elizabeth Hurst
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Elizabeth Hurst
would like to hear them
