Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Davina E Solomon May 2021
In an ocean of night, dreaming of a closed dining space / We were snooping in on a harsh conversation of strangers that we knew / Towards dawn you spoke / as real in the dream as an apparition in the real / of Father and Mother / of them cruising off on a road trip / You faltered at a word I recollect but won't spell / It absorbed into whale song ticking to a time piece / itching to signal morning / and I could feel the depth of many fathoms  floating over a waking to Spring / like being pressed against a cherry blossom trunk / in a tug of war, a push and pull / Let's go Jungian on this, he is much more pleasant / I did see a bumble bee yesterday, not a golden scarab, although that could have been a circadian premonition / and I woke up to a shower of blossoms //
This post was written for the North Atlantic Right Whale, of which sadly, only 360 remain. As per NOAA, " The North Atlantic right whale is one of the world’s most endangered large whale species, with less than 400 individuals remaining --- Whaling is no longer a threat, but human interactions still present the greatest danger to this species. Entanglement in fishing gear and vessel strikes are the leading causes of North Atlantic right whale mortality. Increasing ocean noise levels from human activities are also a concern since the noise may interfere with right whale communication and increase their stress levels".
The article cited below wades through many concepts including: mistrust of the unconscious, wake centrism, in a waking dream and refers to the cinematic treat 'Jacob's Ladder'. I'd like to return to this movie again someday, Tim Robbins was wonderful in this. I've quoted some part of the essay below. Poems sometimes just conjure like a mist above a fallow field, there's no logic to it, or is there? Maybe someday, the dream scientists will let us know.
Here is an interesting read about Dreaming [1]. Quoting part of the article here: The mind seems to grow fidgety and uncomfortable cooped up in a body 24/7. Mentally, dreaming is like taking off a pair of tight shoes at the end of the day: the liberated mind is no longer constrained by somatic sensory and motor processes. Reminiscent of common notions about the soul leaving the body in sleep, dreaming unfetters the mind from the world of matter; and, having vacated the body, consciousness is free to pandiculate, ponder and play. The dreaming mind stretches, yawns and reawakens in a strangely familiar place where it can time travel, dialogue with demons, get trapped in a mundane loop of doing dinner dishes or soar with angels. With Jacob’s ladder in place, the sky is literally the limit.
[1]~https://aeon.co/essays/we-live-in-a-wake-centric-world-losing-touch-with-our-dreams
Cori MacNaughton Oct 2015
She had been at sea for three decades
her first voyage at age eighteen
a week after her marriage
in the year of our Lord 1883

She married a sailing man
captain of his own ship
handsome, bearded and tall
a fine commander of his men
as they searched the sea for whales

She loved life at sea
and could imagine no other
the motion of the ship
the sounds of the rigging and the sails
the quiet companionship
with her husband every evening

She was beloved by her husband’s men
whom she mothered well
having had no sons of her own
but nurtured and healed
patched and sewed
bloodied and broken hearts and men

Often she came out on deck
for she knew when they would find them
and though she was in the stern
and the lookout was high in the crow's nest
she saw many whales they missed

She thrilled each time she saw them
awed by their sheer size
marveling at their strength
humbled by their beauty
careful to hide her feelings

Sometimes she could feel
when a whale would blow
and she would call to the first mate
so the men looked at her
as the whale passed unseen

Most times she silently prayed
willing the lookout to search
the wrong spot of ocean
and felt again the pang
of disloyalty to her husband
for he commanded a whaling ship

But then the lookout's call came
"Thar she blows!"
and the men sprang to action
taking after the whale in longboats
while she escaped below

She had seen before the killing
she would not watch again
too many whales succumbed
to exploding harpoons
and a death horrifyingly cruel

And she wondered
what would happen
if only whales could scream . . .
Originally written on 4 Feb 2006 at 11:57 PM.

This poem is very close to my heart, as I have been strongly morally opposed to whaling since childhood, and it was inspired by the following wrenching quote:

The methods have hardly evolved since Dr. Harry D. Lillie worked as a ship's doctor on a whaling expedition in the Antarctic in 1946:

"If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck into its stomach and being made to pull a butcher's truck through the streets of London while it pours blood in the gutter, we shall have an idea of the present method of killing. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream the industry would stop, for nobody would be able to stand it."

I recently read the wonderful book "Fluke, or I know Why the Winged Whale Sings" by Christopher Moore, in which , though it is a work of (mostly) humorous fiction, he recounts a factual occurrence of a mother whale attempting to protect her calf from the Japanese whaling ship pursuing them.  In Japan, whales are considered to be nothing more than fish, with therefore no moral reason not to hunt them to extinction, but her actions showed the whalers onboard the ship that she truly displayed a mammalian motherly love, and moved many of them to tears.  

There is still room for hope, but we have to act NOW, and drag our government officials into the 21st century kicking and screaming if need be.

— The End —