Week 2- The Marvel

I really enjoyed this poem, especially after we analyzed it in class. When I read it on my own I did not consider how Douglas was showing the reader the world through the eye of the swordfish. I was slightly confused about the line "which is an instrument forged in semi-darkness". I understand that the eye is the instrument he is referring to, but I could not quite figure out what "forged in semi-darkness" could mean. Once Douglas begin talking about the effect of the sun's heat, I assumed that the earlier line would be talking about how the eye of the swordfish had only been in the semi-dark sea its entire life. When Douglas discusses the blade with which the sailor carves into the wood, he refers to it as a "most curious device" to the swordfish. For humans blades are a normal, everyday object, but to a swordfish they are foreign objects. The swordfish connects the object to the dead sailors it has seen in the bottom of the ocean, which is probably the most human interaction the swordfish has ever had, aside from the sailor catching it and bringing it on deck.