By Douglas J. Lanzo
Copyright 2023

First published in Founder’s Favourites Issue 24 (October, 2023)

Rebirth Two Hundred Feet Below

By Douglas J. Lanzo
Copyright 2023

A school of fairy basslets
in bright purple and gold hues,
enchant an ancient shipwreck
and the quarters of its crew,
through towers of magenta
crowning glories of the reef,
coral spiraling the mast,
claiming each rung as its fief.

Joined by swallowtail sea perch
sporting rainbow-colored fins,
they swirl through iron cannons,
playfully in graceful spins.

Refreshed by ocean currents,
krill and plankton from the deep,
they pass by beds of bivalves,
filtering as their eyes sleep,
attached to chains of rigging,
clasping to the ship’s torn hull,
above darkness of the keel,
where a moray peers through skulls.

The graveyard of the galley
where conscripted men did row,
now lined by fans and sponges,
at two hundred feet below,
a rebirth in the ocean
fanned by creatures of the reef,
the beauty of life surging,
fueling faith and sheer belief.