The South Boston Aquarium, 1916

Written by A. Lowell Pub in The Forgotten Aquariums of Boston 2nd Ed By: Jerry Ryan

Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,
Silver shiftings,
Rings veering out of range
Silver - gold -
Green grey opaqueness sliding down,
With sharp white bubbles
Shooting and dancing,
Flushing quickly upward.
Shooting bubbles,
Swallowing them.
Fish.
Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,
The light ripping over them
In steel bright tremors.
Outspread and translucent fins
interfold and relapse;
The threaded light prints through them
On the pebblesIn scarcely tarnished twinklings.
Curving of spotted spines,
Slow up shifts,
Lazy convulsions;
Then a sudden swift straightening
And darting below;
Oblique grey shadows
Athwart a pale casement.
Green man-eating eels
Slumber in undulate rhythms
With crests laid horizontal on their backs.
Barred fish,
Striped fish,
Uneven discs of fish,
Slip, slide, whirl, turn,
And never touch.
Metallic blue fish,
With fins wide and yellow and swaying
Like Oriental fans,
Hold the sun in their bellies
And glow with light;
Blue brilliance cut by black bars
An oblong pane of straw-colored shimmer,
Across it, in a tangent.
A smear of rose, black silver,
Short twists and upstartings,
Rose black, in a setting of bubbles;
Sunshine playing between red and black flowers
On a blue and gold lawn.
Shadows and polished surfaces,
Facets of mauve and purple,
A constant modulation of valves.
Shaft-shaped,
With green bead eyes;
Thick-nosed,
Heliotrope colored;
Swift spots of chrysolite and coral;
In the midst of green, pearl amethyst irradiations.

Outside,
A willow tree flickers,
With long white jerks,
And long blue waves
Rise steadily beyond the outer islands.