Dr. Ycas [of the Quartermaster Research and Development Center, in a report to the National Academy of Sciences] holds that the ocean itself was alive. There were no living creatures in it. When he refers to the ocean in this way he means that it could build up and break down chemicals just as the living body breaks down and utilizes food—the process called metabolism.
—The Times.
O you, Dr. Ycas, you!
In one convulsive motion
Your brain has given birth unto
A viable young ocean.
All monsters pale beside the new;
The Hydra, Hap, Garuda, Ra,
Italapas, Hua-hu
Tiao, Gulltopr, Grendel’s ma,
Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan,
Onniont, Audhumbla, Ix,
Geryon, Leviathan,
666,
The ox Ahura Mazda made,
The Fomors, deevs, Graiae,
And others of this ilk all fade
Alongside Ycas’ sea.
The straits were sinews, channelways
Were veins, and islands eyes,
Rivers tails, reefs bones, and bays,
Depending on their size,
Fists, shoulders, heads, ears, mouths, or feet.
The fjords, as fingers, froze
Sometimes, as did the arctic pate
And the pale antarctic toes.
Horrid, horrid ocean! The
Grandmother of Tyr,
Who had nine hundred crania,
Did not look half so queer.
It whistled with a mournful hiss
In darkness; scared and bored,
It lapped the land, yet every kiss
Was stonily ignored.
A spheric skin, or blue-green hide,
Alone the ocean kept
Our planet’s house, yet when it died
One aeon, no one wept.