Kurt Newton

Communicating by Submarine

Communicating by submarine
isn't difficult
if you're on the same wavelength,
distance doesn't matter,
depth is just a fine adjustment,
all that heavy fluid
just like air,
only thicker.

But sometimes it can be frightening,
trapped inside this vessel,
at times the only sub for miles
it seems,
the daylight murky,
the night like liquid nothingness,
when turning on the radio
is an act of immense concentration,
as if the forty billion cubic tons of pressure
squeezing down
is on you
and you alone.

But you can't forget
that this is a world where
squid run the length of freight trains,
clams grow to the size of treasure chests,
and schools of small shimmery fish
travel in numbers so incalculable
as to alter the very currents in which they swim,
that this is a world where
anything is possible,
even the weight of forty billion cubic tons
held aloft by a single
hope.

So you find it in yourself
to flick that switch,
and tune that dial,
and reach out through
the cold dark medium that separates us,
one from the other,
and you put your trust in wavelengths
and signals,
and beasts too great and powerful to imagine,
and you wait
for a reply.