Diving, Okinawa June 2024
Not a wreck—but a reef,
swarming, alive
over which we float
through the blue hour, suspended
as in a dream.
Coral groves—branched,
starred and grooved— encrust rock
formations that rise and fall away
beneath us—in blooming
topographies.
And curious finned birds
carve invisible pathways about us
through the sliding
atmosphere.
Flippered, geared, newly
amphibious, we crawl on all fours,
groping forward—
lost in this wilderness of fish,
the flicker of forms that escape their names,
as they turn in and out
of the limited field.
It all folds into a single
memory—swirling, brilliant, nondescript—
except for the one nudibranch—
skirt of yellow gold, its ruffled purple fringe,
and dark polka dots rimmed
with aureoles, electric blue.
Oblivious to our presence,
it probes the seafloor with mysterious knowing
as if here and now,
the story were suspended
all speech and language reduced
to the murmurous blur of bubbles shimmering
with wordless exhalations
that rise up to the light and air
where wonder bursts
at the surface.
Photo by Hiroko Yoshii on Unsplash