Murray Dreaming

It’s not the sharks Sliding mere inches from his upturned face Through warps of water where the tunnel arcs Transparent overhead, Their lipless jaws clamped shut, extruding teeth, Their eyes that stare at nothing, like the dead, Staring at him; it’s not the eerie grace Of rays he stood beneath, Gaping at their entranced slow-motion chase That is unending; It’s not the ultra-auditory hum Of ET cuttlefish superintending The iridescent craft Of their lit selves, as messages were sent, Turning the sight of him they photographed To code: it is not this that left him dumb With schoolboy wonderment Those hours he wandered the aquarium. It is that room, That room of Murray River they had walled In glass and, deep within the shifting gloom And subtle drifts of sky That filtered down, it seemed, from the real day Of trees and bird light many fathoms high, The giant Murray cod that was installed In stillness to delay All that would pass. The boy stood there enthralled. Out in the day Again, he saw the famous streets expound Their theories about speed, the cars obey, Racing to catch the sun, The loud fast-forward crowds, and thought it odd That in the multitudes not everyone Should understand as he did the profound Profession of the cod, That held time, motionless, unknown to sound. In bed at night, Are his eyes open or is this a dream? The room is all dark water, ghosted light, And midway to the ceiling The great fish with its working fins and gills Suspended, while before it glide the reeling And see-through scenes of day, faintly agleam, Until their passage stills And merges with the deep unmoving stream.