<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Diving Into The Wreck<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">First having read the book of myths,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">and loaded the camera,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">and checked the edge of the knife-blade,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I put on</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the body-armor of black rubber</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the absurd flippers</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the grave and awkward mask.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I am having to do this</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">not like Cousteau with his</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">assiduous team</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">aboard the sun-flooded schooner</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">but here alone.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">There is a ladder.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">The ladder is always there</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">hanging innocently</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">close to the side of the schooner.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">We know what it is for,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">we who have used it.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Otherwise</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">it is a piece of maritime floss</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">some sundry equipment.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I go down.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Rung after rung and still</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the oxygen immerses me</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the blue light</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the clear atoms</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">of our human air.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I go down.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">My flippers cripple me,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I crawl like an insect down the ladder</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">and there is no one</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">to tell me when the ocean</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">will begin.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">First the air is blue and then</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">it is bluer and then green and then</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">black I am blacking out and yet</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">my mask is powerful</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">it pumps my blood with power</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the sea is another story</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the sea is not a question of power</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I have to learn alone</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">to turn my body without force</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">in the deep element.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">And now: it is easy to forget</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">what I came for</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">among so many who have always</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">lived here</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">swaying their crenellated fans</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">between the reefs</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">and besides</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">you breathe differently down here.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I came to explore the wreck.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">The words are purposes.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">The words are maps.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I came to see the damage that was done</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">and the treasures that prevail.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I stroke the beam of my lamp</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">slowly along the flank</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">of something more permanent</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">than fish or weed</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the thing I came for:</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the wreck and not the story of the wreck</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the thing itself and not the myth</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the drowned face always staring</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">toward the sun</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the evidence of damage</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the ribs of the disaster</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">curving their assertion</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">among the tentative haunters.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">This is the place.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">streams black, the merman in his armored body.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">We circle silently</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">about the wreck</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">we dive into the hold.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I am she: I am he</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">whose breasts still bear the stress</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">obscurely inside barrels</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">half-wedged and left to rot</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">we are the half-destroyed instruments</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">that once held to a course</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the water-eaten log</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the fouled compass</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">We are, I am, you are</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">by cowardice or courage</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">the one who find our way</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">back to this scene</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">carrying a knife, a camera</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">a book of myths</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">in which</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">our names do not appear.</span></p><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Adrienne Rich</div></div></body></html>