on the outside, looking in
today is of whales, cousins of ours,
so unlike us, yet maybe so much more like us
than we can yet fathom,
long ago, like us now, they lived on the land,
yet their path returned them to the sea,
and they return to the air mostly to breathe,
sometimes to breach: for the joy? to slap an itch?
today our boat roars across the ocean,
and, after about an hour, we spot the first plumes of exhaling whales,
followed by their gliding along the surface,
just high enough to breathe in the air,
and then it’s time to dive hundreds of meters down to feed,
we are gifted with an arch to the body,
and then the flukes lift up for a second or two,
as if to wave at us,
and at the world they left so long ago,
we in the boats are like outsiders knowing there is a banquet inside,
and only seeing the patrons at a window,
or maybe it’s like we’re potential immigrants,
dissatisfied with our own country,
and stuck at the border looking in,
even those glimpses help us appreciate a world we can’t quite see,
we hear and love the stories of humpback mothers
successfully defending their young from orcas,
of their seeing humans and knowing them enough
to care and protect when that way opens,
over twenty humpback whales allow us to glimpse them,
and I feel lucky for that,
and also sad that glimpses are the best touch of their world I can get,
on the way back to land, we slow down by some islands
where other cousins bask in the sun:
sea lions, seals, and one otter,
these cousins divide their time fully immersed:
hunting, feeding, feeling the glory of using bodies made for it,
to swim with sinuous grace through the water,
and then long hours resting and dry in the sun,
still my heart reaches to the whales,
whose calls create symphonies, their music their words,
as with their lives, their sounds are just beyond what we can know,
I am torn by the joy of touching the whales’ world
and lamenting how much of their world they keep to themselves.
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