Hail to the Great Blue Whale
by Jane Elsdon
Since the first time I laid innocent Hoosier eyes on the Pacific Ocean at the tender age of thirteen, I have loved that immense and alluring body of water and its multitude of mysterious and fascinating occupants. It’s said that we have in our own veins, blood, sweat, and tears, the same proportion of salt as ocean water. Perhaps that fact contributes to our natural kinship with the ocean and its liquid lexicon of creatures.
I do know that a decade or two back, while reading Deepak Chopra’s Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, I learned that “A humpback whale may theoretically have a maximum life span of over seventy years, but in today’s polluted seas, newborn humpbacks seem to have an average life expectancy of only two or three years.” That discovery grieved me and didn’t bode well for the health of our planet. So when in mid-September of this year local newspapers and television news announced the reappearance of greater numbers of the once endangered Great Blue Whale, it was no small cause for celebration. I felt myself buoyed up as if one of those mighty mammals had scooped me onto its broad back itself and lifted me from the doldrums. What a hopeful sign that something is going right with our world. It was lovely to see youth marveling at the miracle and grace of the great mammals and to be reminded that their calls and songs can be heard by each other for up to a thousand miles. That's what I call connection, relationship.
Heaven knows, the ocean and its environs furnish poets and writers, among many others, with enough endless images, tales, and inspiration for their work. It’s a rare trip to the ocean that doesn’t offer up at least an idea to simmer on, images, similes, metaphors, and subjects to develop. And for all of us, it offers us a favorite place to which we can escape to relax, explore, discover, study, admire, and realign our spirits with nature as we marinate in salt air, hypnotic ocean sounds, and boundless beauty. No wonder I’m still saying “Hail to the Great Blue Whale!” And no wonder I still believe in love at first sight.
Ode to the Ocean
Your heart’s pounding
is the body
from which we rise.
It pulses in our throats,
our wrists,
our memories.
Though long gone
are our fins,
sediment of stars
has risen
with us
to light our way
through forests
of forgetfulness.
Your heart’s pounding
is the song
raising up mountains.
It pulses through
their temples,
smoothes pinnacles,
comforts the air
we breathe.
It is the joy
of seals swimming
in soaring arcs,
their gleaming lives
interweaving with ours,
of whales
webbing the world
with their cries.
It is fish upon our plates,
resilient, strong
in our bones,
the tang of earth
on our tongues
the tide beating on internal shores,
the prayers
our veins hum.
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Your heart’s pounding
Is the unforgiving screen
on which our vulnerability
is magnified
beyond all powers
of denial.
It is the stable center point
where hope meets despair,
the heaving crucible
in which we test
our own shadow
and sunlight,
the vast mystery
in which we experience
the islands
that we are,
separate on the surface
but connected at the core.
It is the holy chant and drum
that sends us away
cleansed and empowered.
Your heart’s pounding
is the body
from which we rise.
It is delivery room
of the planet,
an oracle announcing
what will be our legacy
to those
still to come.
Reprinted from Calapooya Collage 18, August 1994 and Morning and Other Glories, by Jane Elsdon, 2004
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Painting, Ode to the Ocean, by Gene Elsdon
Monarch Butterfly Banner Image by Mike Baird |
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