Sea Monsters

Written to submit to a Twitter challenge to write about sea monsters. Became a bit metaphorical. 
 

Sometimes we look for monsters

in the wrong places or

perhaps the problem is 

that we are searching for them at all;

earth rent, we want to peer into scars,

we wonder what new abyss to descend,

and here are ghosts and fangs enough,

so many vents of fury

sulphuring the blackness.

Yet we journey on by fathoms,

compressed, water weighted -

we see dark stars, but what if

we find that there are no real demons

lurking at these depths after all,

no stinging trail of malignancy?

Then we might uncover the brightness

of ourselves and discover 

the expanse of other creatures

who light up this permanence of night 

with their strange beauty.

Image from wikimedia commons: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colossal_octopus_by_Pierre_Denys_de_Montfort.jpg