Last week’s column I wrote it before the tragic events in Lewiston. That afternoon, in an effort to find a sense of calm and peace amidst a lot of fear and unknowns, I went to the water. The continuity of the water’s surface, the opening of the sky above, and the steadiness of the wildlife on and under its surface were a tonic. The coastline, the sea, and all of its power and wildness appeal to many people for this same reason. This is the case for one of my favorite local poets, Gary Lawless, who many readers may know from his bookshop, Gulf of Maine Books.

It is a poem he wrote about eelgrass that was recently published in “From the Ground Up,” which describes itself as “conversations about conservation, climate and communities in New England,” that gives me a particular focus for this week’s column. As Gary put it when I asked for permission to use his poem, “eel grass — Sears Island,” “eelgrass needs a little help from us humans to survive — and that work is healing for us.” His reference was, at the time of the poem’s writing, in response to a proposed deep-water port off Sears Island. But more relevant to our current and location, is the recent declines in eelgrass populations that have been scientifically measured and anecdotally observed by many people along the coast. According to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, there has been a 54% decline in eelgrass meadows in Casco Bay in the last four years. I have written many times in previous columns about the immense value of eelgrass to coastal ecosystems including everything as basic as providing oxygen to as complex as its root systems that help stabilize the soft sediment below and help keep the water clear and healthy.

In an effort to focus on the positive side of things, with the caveat that the second part speaks to the dangers that people pose to the health of this ecosystem, I want to share the first part of Lawless’ poem, as it speaks particularly of the power of the inclusivity of nature — something that we may all feel a yearning for after contemplating the loneliness and isolation that were factors that led to the Lewiston tragedy. Here is the first part of his poem:

Hard to be lonely
in the lushness of
eel grass, feeling the ocean’s
ebb and flow —
hard to know
want or hurt or
waste, here below
the sun, the sky,
the water’s edge of
grass and mud and
moving with the moon —

There is a comfort in belonging to something bigger than just the human world that is important when we don’t know what to make of the human world. Take all the other reasons that we need to take care of our resources and set them aside for a moment to appreciate the simple connection that it can provide and how invaluable and healing watching a forest of eelgrass ebb and flow can be.

Susan Olcott is the director of operations at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

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