I sleep for ever
I dream to remember
The things I was
The things I am
A slumber stretching onward
Indefinite
For a hope forlorn
For a tranquil doom
Still, in the vast unknown

Into the depths below
Dark, cold
I sunk with a flurry of
Beautiful marine snow
Dander of the photic zone

Layers of sediments deposit onto me
The seeping gas, the pooling brine
I don’t mind, I don’t mind
Atop me, succession:
The comings and goings
Of methanotrophs and sulfide oxidisers
The bustle and strife
Of whale falls and aphotic reefs
While I wait for tectonics: the world to shift and morph
So that I may wake once more
Buried in the euxinic abyss
Hydrothermal is my birthplace
Lithified is my grave

From one iteration to another
From one form to the next self
The things I was
The things I am
Little more than sour filling in a thick round crust
Clutching memories onto a life yet lived
Travelling through geologic time: benthos of the hadal
For now, I rest
The somniloquy of a thermophile