A cryptic, azure cloud; the dark sapphire
Of the deep seems to stretch out forever.
Stacked far above the murky, benthic mire,
Topped by monstrous roiling waves that never
Disturb the vast, cobalt depths of the sea.
The effervescent foam that floats on top
Blows in the faces of men patiently
Working the ships like toys that never stop.
Beware! This boundless cauldron is not dead!
The great, grey sharks and barracudas prey
On the countless schools of smaller fish fed
By many billions of krill and algae.
A silent hunter moves like a dark shape,
Its food in twisting hordes hopes to escape.
A great, green grouper, the size of a man,
Floats by the swirling flocks of lesser fish.
The manta ray swims straight because it can.
Its gigantic wings, like grey-white clouds, swish
Serenely, silently above the schools
Of smaller creatures. They flash silver, blue,
Green, a rainbow of colours in the pools
Between jagged corals of varied hue.
A sudden, scintillating spike of fear
Washes through the undulating pillows
Of life. They jink and twist and dodge to clear
A way. That fierce, supple female slows.
She keenly watches any move nearby,
Those razor teeth trap what catches her eye.
That silent hunter, fast and sleek and dark,
Slips through the cold, salt water like a knife.
The sleek shadow resolves into a shark,
The apex predator and peak of life.
Canny, crafty, a sleek killer from birth,
Her senses sharp across the deep she preys.
She is the mistress of much of the earth
And the lithe queen of all that she surveys.
A scent! A sound! Feel the nerves of the school
Of fish, as if controlled by just one mind,
Dodging and swerving to avoid their doom
Should that sharp and agile female them find.
This ocean! So vast to humanity
For her a pool of electricity.
Deep down in the abyss lies a mute world,
A drab void of empty, motionless cold.
A featureless, flat steppe of mud unfurled
Where no living human has gained foothold.
There’s no sunshine down here to light the way
And it seems nought living in this domain.
Like a dim nebula, a dark fairway,
A sombre wall-less maze, a wide black plain.
From the angels above a bone floats down,
Settles on the mud. Part of a carcass
The razor teeth missed, others fall around.
A scuttle, a shuffle, now there’s a mass
Of scurrying crustaceans, the weird beasts
Arrive from nowhere to consume this feast.