Where the Sun Don't Reach

Ten thousand meters down, past where the light gives out Past where the ocean forgets what warm is about The pressure alone could fold a submarine flat And something still lives there, glowing, patient, and fat

Where the sun don't reach, life found another way Runs on the heat leaking up from the seafloor's clay Chemicals instead of light, sulfur instead of sun A whole food chain built on a fire nobody could run from

Tube worms taller than a person, no mouth, no gut Bacteria doing the eating, tucked in their own hollow trust Vents black as the water, hot as a forge Life took the leftover heat and made it a home to enlarge

Where the sun don't reach, we thought there'd be none Empty, and cold, and quiet, like the story was already done Instead the deepest trench on Earth still hums with a crowd Every one of them proof the dark was never a shroud

We've mapped more of Mars than we've mapped down there The oldest, darkest room in the house we already share Ten thousand meters under everything we've built and known Something is glowing right now, in a color we haven't been shown

Where the sun don't reach, the story keeps going still Older than us, deeper than us, patient past our will The deepest room remembers what the sunlit rooms forget Life doesn't need permission, it just hasn't stopped yet