This:
Oh Ye Whale!
Skittering about above the surface
Of the turmoiled ocean,
The screeching gulls and clawed crabs and the daily fight for food
Make use and company of the whale that
Is resting on the surface, allowing pickage. Friendly and amused, perhaps,
At the ructions and hurly-burly; adding it’s low, long
And sonorous voice (partly heard and soon forgotten)
To the underpinning of the hubbub.
Beginning the long plan, the bulky presence dives,
A black hole appears in the water as the fleshy island sinks,
The maelstrom whirls where had been, a knotty bulk afloat.
The chattering gulls cry out, startled and puzzled
That the reliable, monstrous anchor is disappeared.
Surprise turns to anxiety, the cloud of suspicion rains it’s poisoned seepage and the rootless
Find themselves adrift as the watery typhoon
Of the sudden absence resolves, and the assembly is left to the whims of wind and tide.
Down below the fussing day, the whale
Is journeying a long path, self-charted,
Towards an end of it’s own devising.
Steadily steadily steadily, the leviathan moves with deliberate
Strokes that disturb only the waters of the depths alone,
It’s passage disguised by the careful turn of it’s muscling,
In the immensity of the abyss.
Far above the tectonic plated underworld, the daily game of survival is played out
In all it’s raucous, bloody, reaction to the moment…
Day after exhausting day. Month after month. Year after year.
Then once again, appear! O Ye Whale!
Suddenly, inexorably, breaking the surface
Into the roiling confusion, bringing calm to the waters
Now sliding off it’s colossal presence.
The circle is complete, the detective of the deep has returned, with news
Mined by dint of deep dredge, from the seabed of being.
All is well.