Interrupted Cartography

I discover that my new favourite pastime is snorkelling.
Like some Marco Polo of a brave new world, I chart my territory,
Make this bay mine with a daily reconnaissance
Of its sea-bed.

But, just like old maps,
Monsters are yet to be found in its corners.

Day three.
With my son’s play fishing net and the goggles
That turn everything into a giant, Technicolor cinema,
I pick at what looks like a small snake resting on the sand beneath me,
A trophy to take back to shore.

And then his tentacle appears from under the sand,
Followed by his huge, almost human head.
But the rest!
Eight-legged inhuman jelly!
For a second, the octopus jams my fear off scale.

I panic, flounder, an unheroic dash to the shore.
I scream, "get out of the water, now"
As I overtake my bemused family.

Safely ashore, we stand there, all of us, on the jetty,
staring into that sudden darkness,
Like strangers happening over a car wreck,
shivering at the movement of shadows.

My return to this new world takes time, courage.
Two days, three days pass,
But it’s never quite the same.
The children, like me, hug the shore when they swim,
Prefer another beach.

I guess that what’s not known, at the map’s edge,
In the periphery of our vision,
Is where we conjure our demons.
And once they find us, they stay.

[Sevid, Croatia, July 2004]