melodies OF THE TIDES

By Gabriel Carpenter

With a hand on my goggles and mouthpiece I step forward into thin air, rapidly fall into prismatic water, the vivid colors of Atlantic sunlight shining, small silver fish school around, a luminescent jellyfish pulses angelic, hovering above the reef, rainbow colored parrot fish dart around in a blur. I reach out, almost touching the small flamingo tongue snail resting on a purple sea fan, then see a solitary black trash bag floating down from the pure blue backdrop, a dark stain, a blemish on the mural of coral on the ocean floor.

I daydream the image of Manhattan’s gray skyscrapers some now consider normal, the trash lining Wall Street as businessmen discuss building the next offshore oil rig, oil spills leading to images of washed up dolphins dying, covered in pitch black, the bag tangled around a green turtle, dead coral, harpooned whales butchered.

As if swimming against the Gulf Stream, I reach my hand toward the black bag, hold the dark ghost of plastic, stuff it into a small pouch in my wetsuit, then float at rest, my body drifting with the current in the silence of God.