Crushing Depths

We have better maps of the moon
than of our own ocean floor.
We named the craters of a rock
no human has ever touched,
and yet we haven’t a clue
what’s really under the boats.

I’m like that.
and so are you. we hide the depth
but declare:
Meet me in the sunlight zone!
The top hundred feet,
warm water, good visibility,
everybody’s welcome at the surface.

Want to go deeper? I’ll take you.
The twilight zone, the strange fish.
The fear, wreckage, and ruin of
ships long since resting on the bottom.

This is further than most people ever dive,
and I’ll bring you here on a first conversation
if you ask me like you mean it.

The Titanic lies at the depths
But we know the relics and the gems are
not even close to the bottom.
There’s a trench.
You have one too.

The pressure down there
folds lungs like paper brochures,
and the brochure reads
TOUR OF THE BOTTOM, FREE OF CHARGE,
But the bottom of a person is never free.
Going costs us both handsomely.

We live in a glass-bottom world now,
everybody wanting the view of the deep
without the pressure of the depths.

Responsibly, you only descend
in a vessel built for the crush.
With a crew that will split their oxygen with you
when yours runs thin.
The liscence you need for the journey
is simply having descended your own dark mile
If you understand that coming up slow
is the only way to survive the surfacing together.

The trench is a whole ecosystem
hidden in the dark, but very much alive.
Things live down there,
that make their own light
When they could tell
no other light was coming.

So yes. You can have the tour.
but only if you agree to swapsies.
The deal is:
I’ll guard you if you guard me.
Let’s agree to protect the bright little creatures
at the depths that should have crushed them.

Almost everything. That’s the offer.
Ninety-nine fathoms of yes.
I’ll take you to the depths.
But i’m going to leave just
one inch, at the bottom,
because I still haven’t explored it either.