Rufo Quintavalle

Stately

We wouldn’t advise it, not now the light
is stretched like the skin on a boy’s ribs;
best wait until things thicken up;
the mistake beginners make
is to try and get out
too early, panic
pure and simple;
understandable
when you think of what’s there
in the hadal depths: polyps,
membranes, merest smudges of life
but in such numbers that when they rise
all the measurable sea is solid,
fifty million species julienned
and not with the sharpest of knives
so that among the minnows
and translucent bean-sprouts,
larger objects bob,
awkward wedges
that approximate
too well to memory,
the way at all times a choice
is forming between the moment
and the optimum repartition
in light of what you hope to have achieved;
which is why we advise our clients
to think of their holiday plans
and the like before rushing
willy-nilly to fix
time like a whale
makes ambergris;
on most projections
this is the middle sea,

leaving you free to explore
or float as you see fit, stately
an adjective perfectly suited
to both kinds of Portuguese Man of War.