Sunday, August 26, 2012

Poem: Open Water


Open Water

In the open water between kelp beds
just below the bluffs, where the green ocean
usually rolls calmly with the tide,
a thousand sea gulls and pelicans
kamikaze into a bait fish ball
roiling just beneath the surface,
a feeding frenzy both antic and fierce,
as if saved from the brink of starvation.
Then, like a giant mushroom
emerging from loamy soil,
the enormous head of a humpback whale
rises in the midst of the turmoil,
its gaping mouth filled with water and fish,
the birds attacking its wake for leftovers
as it silently recedes and disappears.
I scan for another sighting
rewarded first by the long rolling back and flukes
and then again, in a new location,
the vertical rise of head and mouth.
Further out, a lone humpback
surges north like a locomotive
mist from its spout
lingering above the whitecaps,
elusive like a dream.
Spellbound, I can’t avert my eyes.
It’s like looking at photos
of galaxies and nebulae in deep space,
like hearing the message in great music.
It’s to know without knowing,
to ask questions and lean into the mystery
without expecting an answer
and not really wanting one
anyway.

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