Well, this is the next in the series of my …animandalas. The form is still inspired by mandalas but has evolved to the point where I felt it wanted its own name. 😉 This time images of fish were swimming around my brain and starting from the yin-yang fish at the centre, through the kelp forest out to the flying fish at the edge, so much fun to create!
By special request, a close-up to show the level of detail.
UPDATE: Poem from Tom! Thanks and yay!
deep within blue ocean’s silent whirl
pools of darkness tidal currents curl
soft black ribbons round unspoken fish
entwined in mind where emptiness meets wish
upon the twinkle in a minow’s eye
while through kelp the seried ranks swim by
and large above the flying fishes leap
undreaming through the air while fast asleep
aware of only surfaces and shiny
scales that sing the music of the world
across tsunami waves that guard the briny
deep within blue ocean’s silent swirl
poem (c) 2016 Tom Radcliffe
image (c) 2016 Hilary Farmer
Green Tea Doodles 
I love how you captured the organic aquatic texture. The close-up makes me wish I could have a print version of this!
Thank you! Prints are in the works – I will make an announcement.
Cheers!
哇塞！:-D
Beautiful and I learned a new portmanteau too.
Thanks! – you heard it here first!
deep within blue ocean’s silent whirl
pools of darkness tidal currents curl
soft black ribbons round unspoken fish
entwined in mind where emptiness meets wish
upon a twinkle in a minow’s eye
while through kelp the seried ranks swim by
and large above the flying fishes leap
undreaming through the air while fast asleep
aware of only surfaces and shiny
scales that sing the music of the world
across tsunami waves that guard the briny
deep within blue ocean’s silent swirl
🙂
This is two lines short of an “inverted sonnet”: 10 lines of couplets followed by an ABAB quatrain. I had to fight the form a bit–or at least we had a fair and forthright argument about the shape the poem wanted to take–but this is pretty close to it, I think, and the heavy use of enjambment fixes it where it is. The whirl/swirl mismatch is deliberate… something about fluid mechanics. And the shiny scales are somehow related to your description of the flying fish that came aboard the Gay Goose and faded with death.
On re-reading, the fifth line should be: “upon the twinkle in a minow’s eye”
flying fish above
deep kelp forest’s teaming gyre
unspoken centre
🙂
Ask and you shall receive!
Thank you! 🙂
Better version (or at least more accessible, and readable on several levels):
flying fish above
wild kelp forest turning ’round
unspoken centre
Yes, definitely more accessible – important for t-shirts! 😉 …and I like it! 😀