“What was missing was the cries of seabirds that surrounded

 the boat on previous voyages …” – Ivan Macfadyen, yachtsman.
In the past we’d seen birds   following the boat

resting on our mast like sentinels

                     or wheeling in the distance

                                          feeding on pilchards.

The birds were missing because there were no fish

no sound but wind in the rigging   waves knocking

against the hull  the steady thud of debris.
Now a mother-ship’s trawling the reef

stripping it   day after day

                     working at night under floodlight.

We feared pirates   but Melanesian men

came alongside with gifts   sugar-bags full of fish.

All they wanted was tuna   the rest dumped as rubbish

                     in the maw of that rotting sea.
After we left Japan   lights of small moored ships at its edges

battered freighters and patrol boats   the ocean itself was dead

                     the shape of a tumorous whale rolled on the surface

like the dome of an old Buddhist stupa

or an alien power-plant.
Power-poles snapped off  by the last killer wave   trail wires

in the middle of the ocean   yellow plastic buoys   synthetic rope

fishing lines and nets   our propeller entangled

                      as though in a mangrove swamp.

No turtles  dolphins  flurries of birds

or sharks   for 3,000 nautical miles.                 
In the waters above Hawaii   you could see right into the depths

                     skeletal as xray artworks   collages of modernity

debris all the way down   soft-drink bottles

pieces of junk the size of a truck   a factory chimney

sticking out of the water.

           Sailing through this garbage dump   plastic and flotsam

scraping the length of the boat
we’d push for a fleet to clean up the mess

if environmental damage   from burning the fuel

                      wasn’t worse than just leaving it there.