Seeing Whales
You can go blind, waiting
Unbelievable quiet
except for their
soundings
Moving the sea around
Unbelievable quiet inside you, as they change
the face of water
The only other time I felt this still was watching Leif shoot up when
we were twelve
Sunlight all over his face
breaking
the surface of something
I couldn’t see
You can wait your
whole life
*
The Himalayas are on the move, appearing and disappearing in the snow in the Himalayas
Mahler
begins to fill
the half-dead auditorium
giant step by
giant step
The Colorado
The Snake
The Salmon
My grandfather walks across the front porch
spotted with cancer, smoking
a black cigar
The whales fold themselves back and back inside the long hallways of
salt
You have to stare back at the salt
the sliding mirrors
all day
just to see something
maybe
for the last time
*
By now they are asleep
some are asleep
on the bottom of the world
sucking the world in
and blowing it out
in wave-
lengths
Radiant ghosts
Leif laid his head back on a pillow and waiting for all the blood inside him
to flush down
a hole
After seeing whales what do you see?
The hills behind the freeway
power lines
green, green
grass
the green sea
by Michael Dickman
from The End of the West
Copper Canyon Press, 2009