Cousteau
We liked the sound of his voice, balanced
between a child’s wonder, an adult’s knowing,
filtering through the small television speaker.
We liked his red cap bobbing against
the shifting blue, his sun-weathered skin,
hands cradling one alien lifeform
or another, startled into being, reaching out
in all directions at the sudden expanse of air.
We loved most the strangeness,
every new thing in search of a name,
this kingdom so far removed from the certainty
of classrooms, the drab housing of the projects.
How else could we have known that
the world, like us, was mostly water,
how else to imagine our small bodies
descending into darkness unafraid,
suddenly weightless among the current,
how else could we ever have believed
in all the beauty we could not see?
• • •
Greg Watson’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. He is the author of nine collections of poetry, and co-editor with Richard Broderick of The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood. His forthcoming collections are The Days Between (Kelsay Books), and Stars Unseen (Holy Cow! Press).