To the sea– a place magnificent beyond words
Yet many a philosopher, artist puts names to its wonders, as impossible as it is to capture
The last of Earth's frontiers, a source of great knowledge but still great mystery
Brilliant creatures populate its depths, alien to our own way of life
Yet seeing them in their home a beautiful sight
A whale shark, back spotted white against blue, a reflection of starry skies above or perhaps a snowy backdrop
Floats, peaceful, on the outskirts of a reef, opens its mouth to suck in miniscule creatures foolish enough to find their way inside
A mammoth to all those tiny fish which habitate the reef, yet nothing to cause fright to anything larger, a gentle giant
Giant manta rays breach the surface, gliding a moment as if they were diving birds, unbound to the water
A humpback whale, too, breaches, its gray skin adorned with oysters and barnacles clung to the safety of its weight– the impact of its mass making contact with the water creates a great splash
So too does a white shark breach, massive and intimidating in its old age and size, its body lathered with scars of bite marks and scratches
It breaches in its chase of a seal, the sight of its magnificent form an unwitting effect to passersby as the seal is tossed meters into the air
Under the water, remoras will attach themselves to its side to feed on all that gathers on its rough skin
The shark will allow cleaner fish to pick away the pests at its sides
Salmon, having travelled a long ways from upstream, come to the ocean for food– later in their lives, they will again leave the sea, to reproduce for the next generation to do the same
A bull shark, in the pursuit of a smaller fish finds its way miles upstream in a murky brown river, where it is a stark anomaly to its inhabitants
In the deep sea, even more spectacular beasts arise, creatures which dwarf their shallower relatives in size
A velvety red squid, the length of a bus with tentacles to match– a colossal squid, its saucer plate eyes large to see all
Giant isopods, like deep-sea roly polies, perhaps intimidating if they had evolved on land, but a foot and a half in length, they can exist only with the crushing force of the deep ocean
A great, long transparent mass, growing in places– one could not tell where the creature begins or ends, a siphonophore, tiny beings grouped to create a biological ribbon
In this sparse area, the fish which makes up most of the ocean's weight– snailfish, a tiny fish on its own but colossal in numbers
Towards the surface, a school of silvery fish, a writhing mass giving the appearance of one massive creature– a simple facade created by the unity of so many individuals, bringing them safety
A summer night, moon jellies rise to the surface, thousands of dimly lit white specks floating aimlessly, a mesmerizing sight– by instinct, it is their time to breed, though is this knowledge held throughout their bodies, for their lack of brain?
Dawn bleeds orange into the sky, and babies crack out of their eggs, dug under the shore– sea turtles, tiny flippers slapping against the sand and propelling them out to the ocean
Unnoticed, a constant process as waves lap against the shore
Rocks, thrown against hard surfaces, tumbled and smoothed by the sands of time
There is so much more, more beyond our knowledge or discovery– things down there we don't know exist, couldn't guess, can only hope to catch a glimpse of
And creatures long, long gone, which we can never know
Some mysteries of the sea will keep to themselves
