Still Life in the Deep

Keep the lights off. Use the glow

Available as it is,

Wherever it’s coming from—

You want it feeble. You want

Not to pierce the darkness but

To glimpse it to understand

What it is about darkness

That makes it this animal,

Creature made of what it is,

And not what it moves within,

Not like the leviathan,

More as if the waters lived.

The energy you are, glow

With, if you will, that outlines

Your shadow against the dark

Is not just you, not just yours,

And no, you needn’t gift it

To some imaginary

Authorship to see as much—

The glow that you are is faint,

But it is continuous

And has been continuous

For nearly four billion years

Without ever going out.

That’s what it means to sit here,

Faintly aware of the dark.

You are the briefest of shades,

But you’re the leviathan,

Or the lamp in its belly

As it navigates that dark

It has navigated now,

Has partnered with, has swum in

And danced with, billions of years.