Porpoise
Every year, when we're fly-fishing for tarpon
off Key West, Guy insists that porpoises
are good luck. But it's not so banal
as catching more fish or having a fashion
model fall out of the sky lightly on your head,
or at your feet depending upon certain
preferences. It's what porpoises do to the ocean.
You see a school making love off Boca Grande,
the baby with its question mark staring
at us a few feet from the boat.
Porpoises dance for as long as they live.
You can do nothing for them.
They alter the universe.
by Jim Harrison
from The Shape of the Journey
Copper Canyon Press, 1998