Calypso

The modern barman resembles Cousteau. Prepared, pressurized, sealed off in his equipment he descends, falling over backward with his gear on into an opening of waters, a 5:30, a Tuesday night wine tasting. It's taken him a long time to get ready. There is a system, a checklist. Then it is time to dive.

Aquatic life is the basis for all. It's not odd to expect some kind of a resemblance in the life of the human being as he and she relax under the influence of feeling a natural habitat. Turn the lights on, we're going in to the sacred life of the coral reef.

We'll swim down through the water, maybe passing a shark off on its own errant circles and tail shifts, a creature pure on looking for something, a mouth ready. We'll go down, deeper, to the sponges of a reef. We are observers. The wine breaths, breaths life, respirations that cleans and cool, filtering life, giving it a new cleanliness. Wine is, after all, water that has risen through a particular kind of seemingly static creature, through the rocky beds of old sea floors, drop by drop, into the fruit that reaches for that energy of the sun.

All are happy in the water, and the diver drifts amongst them, attending duties, partly clumsy, a form of interruption. But all are equal in the deep. Couples indulge in dessert, after dinner and all the rituals. Water, by its very nature and texture, brings peace. Small and streamlined creatures, words, dart about, stories from eons ago, told afresh. Some sulk behind shells, or reef-like disguises, or in their rocky holes. The octopus sits in his famous garden, touching all things, tending with his motions, as the capped Gallic poet rendered so freshly, better than Baudelaire.

The barman will, must needs, rise to the surface after the dive. He will rise slowly after leaving the noise and the activity and the shot glances and the greasy rubs behind, after the struttings and the color flexes, the rise of quills, the quick scuttle sideways, the tweek of an eye antennae tasting. All are gone now. He's back safely on his ship, the experiments and the observations done. Risen to the surface, stripping off his gear, it his now his to reflect and do the things of checkout.

For aquatic life exists and thrives, even in the world of land.