Antikythera Mechanism, or Dreams Submerged – A Poem by Merril Smith

Submitted by Merril Smith

Long ago, a wooden ship
storm-caught, lay forgotten

far below the waves. Her secrets dripped
through her halted hull,

bobbing to the surface
(as dreams do)

while the creation within–
a vision of once shiny concinnity
grew tarnished,

its wheels and gears stilled,
its promises and predictions

sea-surrendered and metamorphosed,

buried with responses never revealed
to questions left unasked
about the future,

where we, once sea-dwellers,
still feel the constant tide’s pull,
urging us down–

yet we look up—with dreams
remembered–
that we came from the stars.

*In 1900, sponge divers found the Antikythera mechanism in a two thousand-year old Roman ship sunk off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera.

About the Poet

Merril D. Smith is an independent scholar with a Ph.D. in American History. She is the author/editor of many books of history, gender, and sexuality. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have been published or are forthcoming in Streetlight Press, The Same, Rhythm and Bones, and Vita Brevis. She muses and writes here.

Painting: The Shipwreck on Northern Sea – Ivan Aivazosky