Whale Song
Immensity was my first memory:
a vast space set before me
fading to aquamarine.
How limitless, the sea!
As I grew, I traveled far
through all the seven seas:
I chased the sun 'round westward,
circled back to east,
explored the frozen Arctic
and basked in the tropic breeze,
leapt into the air
and plumbed the mysteries of the deeps. . .
. . . but in all those many waters,
I could never find another beast like me.
My search turned frantic; year to year
I sought those boundaries,
the ocean walls of heavy sand
that checked my odyssey.
I had to find them—else I'd ever wonder
was there love, somewhere, for me?
Was empty water all I'd ever see?
It was; what's more, the walls pressed tight
till I could barely breathe.
How minuscule, the sea.
And now, barnacled, blackened bulk,
I drift among the seafloor hulks,
the remnants of forgotten, sunken dreams;
like me, they’ve come to rest here
at the very edge—the limit—of my final sea.