Two Hundred Years

Two Hundred Years

I have swam beneath the ice for two hundred winters
watched two hundred summer suns
shine upon this turbulent sea
saw your kin upon the shore
stepping gently, leaving only footprints
first, then wooden paddle strokes
soon rumbles and streaks in the sky

I have seen your rise
rapid as the moonlight spread across
a tundra plain, and now watch
while the moon-set makes ready
remembering how two hundred years
you watched for my spout
saw hope in the mist
made my grandmother into corsets
carved my mother for a mangled
meal for the bottom crawlers with
war weapons, steel whales
with your men sealed
screaming inside

some of your kind believe we
wield the ability to hear those
thoughts in your head, your actions
are already gale force, only if you listened
long enough at the ocean's edge
everything would crystalize
clear, and two hundred years
you would see from sea




(Poem #1 for the National Poetry Month Challenge by Don Rearden. Here the imagined life of a bowhead whale, the subject of a new novel I'm working on tentatively titled Whale Road.)