Red Crab Migration

First rainfall’s cavalcade:
One hundred and twenty million
crabs scuttle from forests at same time
to mate and spawn at Indian Ocean,
Christmas Island, Australia.

A hundred thousand eggs fill a brood pouch.
Always the release of eggs before dawn
on receding high tide, last quarter moon,
with mothers’ pinchers raised high in the air.

Larvae hatch at first contact with water
to mostly perish in a world not for saving
as the tide carries them out to sea,
and maybe in days later to surface
an offering back to the earth as gift—
baby crabs—a place for hidden safety.

Lynne Goldsmith is an award-winning poet who has been published in All-Creatures.Org, Interalia Magazine, Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Not Very Quiet, Plants & Poetry Journal, Red Planet Magazine, Spillway, Thimble Literary Magazine, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and elsewhere. Her first book, Secondary Cicatrices, won the 2018 Halcyon Poetry Prize and was a 2019 Finalist in the American Book Fest Awards, a 2020 Human Relations Indie Book Award Gold Winner, a 2020 International Book Award Finalist, a 2021 Book Excellence Award Finalist, and a 2021 Distinguished Favorite in the Independent Press Awards.