Chemically Preserved in Jelly

Translucent orbs of moonlight
Sail along our chalky coasts.
Encased in an envelope
Of teals and sapphires,
Their chemical composition
Reveals the secret tracks
And hidden pathways
Of a thousand
Thousand
Squares of liquid land.
By mapping their nutrients
Across soggy habitats
We use these charts
To navigate the channels
Of our uncertainty.
 
We pluck a feather from a
European Shag,
Deconstruct its chemistry
And lay it down beside
Our jellied atlas
To trace an unseen heritage.
Exposing spatial models of
Carbon and sulphur
We draw lines through space
And time,
Preserving our future selves
From fraudulent seafood;
Our lucid beacons of aspic
Guiding us
Through troubled waters.
Moon jellyfish, or Aurelia aurita, are probably the most common and widely recognized type of jellyfish, and can be found near the