Ode on a Whale

Ode on a Whale

I must be a mermaid, if I can swim with whales, and breathe,
Roll with a leviathan fearlessly,
Dive so deep,
Understand the language that the dolphins speak.

I must be a siren, if my song can lure a Nereid denizen,
Inspire plangent echoes in the wandering baleen,
Swell the sea,
Draw the sleeping monsters of the deep to me.

Out here no bird can fly.
Out here no land's in sight.
Only water meeting sky,
Unblinking vast horizon, view from God's own eye.

That wave you say you ride?
Waxing orgasmic over every crest?
Furious forces crashing into foam
Lifting you with every tug of tide,
Flinging you limp onto the sand?
That wave is something I have known.

Known, and gone beyond.
Left on that shore.
Now,
Miles out and fathoms deep
With whales I plunge and float, skyhop and breach,
Recovering ancient mysteries
Flowing in my veins
Older than Adam, spiraling
Backward through unmeasured time, prizing
Secrets locked in the chambered nautilus.

Coral, pearl, and ambergris my treasure is,
Buried in murky caskets unsealed by a kiss.
Protean mistress prenticed to a watery lord I am.
Nightly, my metamorphosis.

I linger in the chambers of the sea
Till divine voices wake me, and I dream.