Shannon Leigh

I did not know this young Austin poet who died after a diving accident in one of the most beautiful places I know: Devil's Ear Spring in the Santa Fe River. In reading more about the accident I discovered a poem of hers:

Underwater, four hundred feet back
into the earth's graveyard
we turned off our lights and hung
in perfect blackness
swallowed up by the dark stone
the devil's gullet
the catacombs of the reckless

I have never been so happy than surrounded
by crushing depths and old memories
except that first night
when I lay next to you, your hand
across my shoulderblade my lips
in the hollow of your throat
you are that quiet resignation
that joy of nothingness, as close
as I can ever get to peace
as close as I would ever want

give me four hundred feet inside you
the blackness under your skin
and I will rest in you forever
the marrow in your bones is pockmarked with caves
and I have time.

- Shannon Leigh

Years ago I wrote something similar (not nearly as good: "Sink Whole" on this page) and so I doubly mourn the passing of a kindred spirit. A very sad story indeed.