photo by Ellen Kooi
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 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 waited 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
-Matthew Dickman
6 comments:
This was one of those poems that prompted me to immediately add the book to my Amazon list after reading it on Poetry Daily.
Yes...I so admired the way this poem moved around such varied landscapes, evoking each. It's a captivating work.
A stunning poem indeed, thanks for the opportunity of reading it.
One of the wonders of reading blogs is discovering writers whose work I'm not all that familiar with. This is a mesmerizing poem.
I think this one is actually by Michael Dickman, Matthew Dickman's twin.
Thanks Matthew...good catch. The author is indeed Michael...I mixed up the names after reading the poem at Poetry Daily. And thanks for visiting.
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