Morality at the Bottom of the Sea

Ethics demands personhood,
like tentacles reaching out into the dark abyss of human preponderance,
so too, if we recall, those pointy ends,
grasping at straws for which way to go
and to whom or what to turn,

that even the tips of those long, undulating appendages,
seeming to float and waver in the unknown,
are traced, over long eons of inquiry, back to the cephalopod,
the source of all their searching for what is good and right,
for they are not cast off into the deep chasm and personless void,
but connected to the one who searches all, sees all,
who both commands and cooperates with its many arms,
working toward the ultimate good. 

Ethics demands personhood, and we are reminded of Ivan,
the Karamazov brother who would later repent
after debating the devil,
who said, in cold journalist rhyme,
"If God does not exist,
crime is not only permissible,
but necessary."