“It’s deadly, dangerous, doomful!”
Utter superstition about the sea,
“The terror there will scar your soul!”
I seek not horror, but fragile beauty
The smashing waves with hands of white,
Slap and punish the well-worn coast,
This quiet lapping goes through the night,
Nice and peaceful, for the most,
But as the soft squishing of feet are left,
And the sun retires past its eve,
The ocean comes alive to a depth,
That no mortal eyes can perceive,
The frothy foam of the elegant waves,
Gallop across the sea like dancers,
They clash together like rowdy knaves,
And cleverly hide the answer,
To the question that every fearful man will ask
“What lies in the deep darkness down there?”
The answer is a rather simple task,
Observe beneath the water, not above from the air,
Feel the cool press of the mask on your face,
The engagement of lead weights and flippers,
But we’re not in a hurried race,
Just a journey to see the stingrays and skippers,
The bubbles as I fall blow past me to an upper world,
Where I sink down deeper, into the familiar sea,
I am admitted to the water by an octopus herald,
Here is where I belong, where I am truly happy,
The rough hands of coral reach like a mother,
Their spiked embrace sheltering friend or foe,
The fish do not look upon me as another,
Not an invader, but a friend they know,
Surely their wide rolling eyes suggest,
They possess higher wisdom, like gods over us,
Their fickle swimming seems like a test,
My strange alien presence they seem to discuss,
For am I not an invader in their sacred reef?
But suddenly, there is a plausible shift,
The flick of a tail and the wave of a fin,
The school darts away, quick and swift,
Hostility fills the air instead of the love it had been,
A bubble-blowing, large, black machine,
Am I a monstrous atrocity beyond belief?
Like the fish in the sea on the land I do teem,
But even my caution cannot freeze my eyes,
They flicker back and forth observing all there is,
The fish blend together, all their details and dyes,
Oh, is there any better pleasure than this?
To see the brilliant silverfish darting and dashing away,
Or the colorful reef fish treating me like a friend,
They have accepted me as a figure to stay,
But they still ask, “What does he intend?”
For bringing me here, an air-breathing alien,
It seems the greatest sin possible in this world,
Do they fear the menace of a vessel I sail in?
Have the stories of my kind been already told?
Oh, but dolphins squeak at me with those sweet little eyes,
And even the sharks raise their fins in my name,
Every creature pokes its head out to spy,
The void creature they managed to tame,
But I cannot stay with the friends of the sea,
For my midnight dive is drawing to an end,
Everyone seems to be crying, “Come back, please!”
“Come and visit us now and then?”
But I throw my head back out of the water,
Take a breath of salty air in the chill of September
I feel my spirit soar a little taller,
As the boat churns away, but I’ll always remember
We destroyed the sea with our evil ways,
There’s no need to lie, hide or pretend,
But we can ensure that the marine life stays,
Not as our enemies, but as a friend
And finally, the sun peeks out to begin a new day,
And the smashing waves slowly recede,
The scenic ocean is beautiful from far away,
But the real beauty is always found underneath.