at night when the blue is black and while      
fish and Christians sleep, the
polyps bloom with tentacles
 to snatch at zooplankton and
 phytoplankton that swirl and
reel and churn and stream in
 the stream of the flow that    
 flows, that flows, it flows:     

 but light comes, somehow comes, makes      
  the black blue, shoots through
   the glaze, feeds the algae that  
  feed the polyps that make the
  branches, leaves and flowers,
    fans, the plates, and the brains,
    and horns, the honeycombs      
  and cabbages, that make the  
 ground of being, here:            

 light that lets the algae, lets the grasses          
   and the sponges and slugs, the
   sea squirts and sea cucumbers
    and clams, anemones, shrimps,
  the barnacles, the butterflyfish
   and the damselfish, parrotfish, 
  the rainbowfish, fish that are  
   violet-winged, are neon-tailed,
 goggle-eyed, that are striped,
  are spotted, they are frilled:    

black sea cucumbers browse along sandy      
        floors and hermit crabs scavenge  
     among weeds and western rock
          lobsters prowl across ledges and    
   cuttlefish forage through algae  
           and octopuses steal from crevices   
        and barnacles probe with feathery
       legs and banded cleaner shrimps 
   loiter at their stations:              

sea urchins scrape at algae and bright pink    
      sea slugs chew tissue from bright
  pink sponges and butterflyfish
   graze on sea anemones and fan
      worms reach out at plankton and
      whelks nibble at staghorn polyps
       and parrotfish chew on the white 
      skeletons of coral and sea stars  
    wrench open scallops, mussels,
         oysters, and bailer molluscs step   
           upon their smaller mollusc cousins  
             to smother them and engorge them:   
             
everywhere the filter-feeders and mucous      
      traps and sticky feelers and the  
       snapping teeth and biting beaks,  
    the reaching tentacles and the  
    grasping  claws, the lightning    
    pincers:                                   
 
everywhere the stinging cells and tails and      
       the paralysing suckers, the toxic  
      barbs, the poisonous saliva and  
          shocking spines, the boring snouts  
      the crushing jaws, the venomous
   bristles:                                  

within blue beneath glaze, an economy of      
   death:                                    

all everywhere open-mouthed, greedy for      
     gain, risking for reward, living to
    die, and dying, dying, dying that
  others might live to die:           

the dying to each other that is living                
    together, loving that is hard:      
    
the symbiosis because of photosynthesis        
    and the photosynthesis because
     of light and the light because of  
         mathematics and the mathematics  
        because without it nothing would  
   add up, so people say:            

 light that makes blue, makes this blue:            
   
 blue, transparent, blue transparent sea, the    
          bare-skinned sea, clean-paned sea  
      open to every eye, quite as blue,  
        true blue, quite as transparent, as  
       anyone could possibly expect or  
   hope or need:                          

and out beyond the line of reef where the      
        custody ends and the glass breaks
     and the blue shivers, it heaves, it
      plunges, far out, beyond this bay
   of snorkels, sunscreen, burning
      bodies, something huge thrashes:

‘what the hell is that?’ someone asks:              

we stand up, eyes narrowed against the        
  light:                                      

is it sharks crazed among fish that teem          
  and they seethe? is it a whale  
     that sports, frenzied in delight?   

what dark image splashes there at the edge    
   of sight?