Those bare-breasted women who hung
over the mantel of my cold sea-
green childhood were ama, or “ocean-
women,” divers after pearls, seaweed and shellfish
in elegant prints by Utamaro
of the ukiyo-e or “floating world”
where ama have free-dived
in frigid waters for thousands of years
a hundred feet per breath, sixty
dives a day, well into their eighties
In Iwase’s black and white photos from the 50s
their compact bodies framed radiant—
though proud of their skill, all
have other work, mostly farming, and say
they are not good enough to be called ama
Perhaps what half-starved sailors
(like the Dutchman Hamel whose ship
the Sperwer ran aground in 1653)
saw streaming past were ama
whom they called meremayds
So I keep diving (though I have other
work and am not good enough) to see what,
rich and strange, I can bring from below—
abalone lobster starfish urchin
and every now and then a pearl
Photo by Angel Jimenez on Flickr
