Thursday, November 22, 2007

Hudson Oyster

I thought this was a beautiful passage, and I will just type it in:

"If we had had the ability to see deep into water, it would have all been different. New Yorkers dumped trash and sewage into the water because there it was out of sight. Suppose they could have seen it landing on the oyster beds. In the spring, the migratory fish return. Thousands of bumpy alligator-headed, primeval two-hundred pound sturgeon; elegant silver-streaked striped bass, their stripes seemingly made for racing; and thick schools of radiant shad tear into the strong currents, while little baitfish, purposeless hangers-on caught up in all the exhilaration of the moment, struggle furiously along as best they can. They are all bumping shoulders, swatting tails, thousands and thousands of determined fish, putting their heads nose first into the same current, charging through the Narrows over to the oyster beds of Liberty and Ellis islands, while their sedentary partners, the oysters, wave their shells open and closed beneath them, pumping clean the water, the seething crowds above turning and racing toward Manhattan and the Hudson River, past the teeming and humming city, street by street to the picturesque upstate waters of their birth. Certainly anyone who could have seen that would have understood that the great and unnatural city was built at the site of a natural wonder, and that the lowly oysters working at the bottom were a treasure more precious than pearls."

1 comment:

Adam said...

anything like mountain oysters, or lamb fries?