Finned
FiNS Magazine reader Margaret Ang sent us this moving poem conveying a shark’s feelings about being finned.
Finless, helpless, already forgotten
By creatures they called human beings
Without a second thought, they detached my fins
Then threw me back into my world without shame
For they need my fins for their health or so they claim
Now I lay here, motionless and in pain
And wonder why the view is so strange
Ah, perhaps I have never swum this way
So I tried to turn myself around but failed
Much as I tried, my efforts were in vain
Then I realised they even took my tail
Memories of moments before my capture
Came flooding back in small clusters
Swimming happily with other sea creatures
In and out, here and there, in mother’s nature
Enjoying the power of my body movements
Oh how I long again for that priceless freedom
Ah, that priceless freedom…
The right to live…