[Poem] The Deep Ones

From the sea we come,
From the sea we come,
Our mouths, the inns of the world,

The salt of the earth unwelcome
At the tables and charts of
Explorers who expect:

               Commodity and pliant territory
.
               Kingdoms, not wisdom.

               Blood, not heaven’s children.

We grow with uncertain immortality
At the edge not made for man

Bending, curving, humming cosmic—
Awake and alien

Our mass a dark and foaming mask,
A bed of enigma to certain eyes

One with the moon,
One with the stars,
One with the ash that whispers history

In the same breath as myth and gods
Whose great backs yawn before us

As we change with a growing tongue
Growling amid the dreamlands

              We built one blade, one leaf, one golden wall at a time.