Elated by progress of the Census of Marine Life shared at the Auckland All-Program meeting 14-16 November 2007, we recall and post Sylvia Earle’s delightful poem written in October 2003 for the public launch of the program:
To COML, a worthy endeavor
May all gathered here be honored forever
For daring to count all of the creatures
Their habitats, their range, their various features.
Those in the future will raise their glasses
If we succeed in saving the masses
Of fishes and squids, polychaetes, too
The algae, the microbes, the whole ocean zoo.
A toast to the known, the unknown, the unknowable
We have a good start and the list is growable.
A toast with your choice of liquid potions
To the past, to the future of the living oceans.