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| David Blackwood, "Sounding Whale - Labrador Sea" |
Whale at Twilight
The sea is enormous, but calm with evening and sunset,
rearranging its islands for the night, changing its own blues,
smoothing itself against the rocks, without playfulness, without thought.
No stars are out, only sea birds flying to distant reefs.
No vessels intrude, no lobstermen haul their pots.
Only somewhere out towards the horizon a thin column of water appears
and disappears again, and then rises once more,
tranquil as a fountain in a garden where no wind blows.
Elizabeth Coatsworth
How many poems are there with whales in them? I should Google that. (Probably more than there are poems about garlic.) Sometimes a descriptive poem is a relief - no layers of meaning, just the scene or the thing itself - it's restful for the mind. And this poem is restful, the description of the sea as something enormous but calm and tranquil, alive and moving, but without intent or thought - is lulling.
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