by Murray Silverstein
Coral
—a 50th anniversary poem
Some sun reaches the deeper you go,
but only the weakest spectral blue,
so it takes a billion years,
but coral gives shelter to algae
while algae make protein for coral from light,
the protein which makes the skeletons glow
all those oranges, yellows, brilliant reds.
Each feeds each what light there is
the deeper you go. And it takes time,
but everything’s finally on fire.
Photo by Oleksandr Sushko on Unsplash
