The Dive
There is something divers know
that swimmers never learn:
the water keeps a record.
Every entry writes itself
in the ring it leaves behind.
Yours was wide.
I watched it travel all the way to the tiled edge
and come back to you, applauding.
Mine you may have missed.
I may not make a splash above.
Ask instead how deep the body goes below.
The splash is what the dive gives away.
Every degree off true —
every part of you still arguing with the air —
comes back as noise across the surface.
The clean dive goes in like a seam closing.
You approach me splashy and bright.
But how deep can any dive be
when so much is spent on the splash?
I have been down where the light
gives up its colors one at a time.
Where you stop halfway to equalize
or the pressure takes your head apart.
You cannot talk down there.
You cannot be charming.
There is only how long you can hold
what you brought with you.
It is still down there.
Coming up too fast has a name.
Many have died of the hurry to surface.
I know exactly what it costs to leave that fast.
I did not choose the leaving.
Above ground now, I know how I look.
A gray rosette flat against the dirt.
Nothing worth crossing the field for.
I might have a flower like a poppy.
But what do you know about my taproot?
Two days of scarlet, paid for
by a root that goes down farther
than the plant will ever stand tall.
Paper on top. Rope underneath.
I see your leafy greens in the sunlight,
all that breadth, all that easy reaching.
One dry month is all it takes
to learn what a plant is standing on.
Oh, how the leafy greens desire
the deep taproot they sense in me.
It is still down there.
There is another one at the edge of this field
who never asks about my root at all.
He has his own. He knows where it goes.
He wants only the top two inches of the season,
nothing that has to overwinter.
I understand him better than I want to.
Two dormant roots do not make a spring.
So here is what I am going to do,
and I am going to say it plainly,
because you have earned plain.
Not this season.
Not because you are shallow.
Because you are early.
You have never had to hold anything through a winter.
You should. You should have the whole long loyal thing,
somebody who goes down with you
and equalizes when you equalize
and does not surface early.
That is not me. Not now.
What I have is spent. Not gone. Spent.
Go find your deep water.
Do not learn to fake a small splash.
Go down until it is quiet,
and stay as long as your breath allows.
The field will look empty.
It will not be empty.
It is still down there.
