There have been a number of poems about whales,
and this is the most recent one.
Where we live, one thinks about whales quite a lot.
This was called The Shore.
How can anyone know that a whale 200 years ago
could hear another whale at the opposite end of the Earth,
or tell how long the eyes of a whale
have faced both halves of the world
and have found light far down in old company?
With the sounds of hollow iron charging clanging
through the oceans and with the circuitry and the harpoons
of humans and the poisoning of the seas,
a whale can hear no father through the present
than a jet can fly in a few minutes.
In the days of their hearing, the great blues
gathered like clouds.
The sunlight under the sea surfaces sank into their backs,
into the water around them, through which
they flew invisible from above except as flashes of movement.
And they could hear each other's voices wherever they went.
Once it is on its own a blue can wander the whole world
without beholding both sides of the water,
raising in each ocean the songs of the blues that it
learned from distances it can no longer hear.
It can fly all its life without ever meeting another blue.
This is what we are doing.
This is the way we sing, oh blue, blue.