Man is like the statue whispering about the marble chiseled from his mouth. The poet Kabir, they found nothing beneath his shroud but a sprig of jasmine. Isaac Newton was born the year Galileo died. On the day Michelangelo died in Rome, Galileo was born in Pisa. Snow falls from here into the past and vanishes on golden minarets. These are the desks where Pushkin wrote, his chalkboards, his astrolabe. We stand at the casement window of Pushkin’s Lycée. Or two other words.īut they are the same passerines as live in the stone eaves,Īs forage in the air toward night. Some speak quietly beside us on the bench near where koi swim.Īt night there is a light sound of wings brushing the walls. Or while walking in the rain among graves we feel watched. In sleep we see our name on a stone, for instance. It begins with a word as small as the cry of Athena’s owl.Īn ache in the cage of breath, as when we say can hardly breathe. Stay behind in the earth when your name is called. Passed away which on earth was given you.” You came to the people in a time of uprising It was just as Brecht wrote, wasn’t it? “You came Just, with its vaultedĬhoir and transept, a wall of suffering souls. In the machinist’s shop, or lighting every votive Never found you walking in the ruins of the blownīarracks, wading in the flooded camp, taking cover Kitchen on the last night, as a saint soon to be In a basket crossing a vineyard, nor in a convent On the roof as the man beside you leapt, not Later in the ship’s hold, not in the shelter, nor high Not in a small graveĭug by a child as a hiding place, nor years There is no calendar, no month, no locket, but your name With barn wood, earth and hay, to be as quiet as plums turning. On a lighted proscenium, even in a darkened house,īut would rather dig a hole in a field and cover herself Not yet herself, having not yet learned to reciteīefore others, and who would never wish to stand Your hair has not yet fallen out nor grown back. No one has written on the back from left to right. Paper, no dates stamped in a border, no sleeve, no fire, There is no album for these, no white script on black When we reach it, not only may the salmon returnīut you will be alive again, wake me when we reach the carrick. The carrick is a foothold in the distance, a stone in time. We have only to keep walking for the bridge to go on. Ruins of boats, nets, buoys and fisherman’s bothy. Of salmon, empty nets, and on the carrick Like ship’s rigging, volary of rock pipits,Īnd in the blackest water below us ghosts Hoisted over the silvering salmon as they leaptĪcross this very bridge that rings in wind Once made of hides and the hair of cows’ tails The bridge rises and falls with our steps, moving in wind Of kittiwake preparing to leave their nesting ground. The headland recedes – cottages and boats, clouds and sheep,Ī piping of oystercatchers dying out, and the callings Sea against rocks in heave and salt, and betweenīridge and sea an abyss we cross, as behind us The wings of mute swans singing in flight.īelow us bladder-wrack, sea-froth and dulse, The verge, our certainty, and walk acrossĪ chasm to the cries of cormorants, fulmars, But with two healthy calves born in 2020 and a new baby female calf born in 2022, local whale researchers and the Lummi Nation are holding out hope that it isn’t too late to ensure a future for Kiki and her family.Behind us a sea-cliff, landfall, ahead the wind, With 81 Salish Sea orcas missing or dead since 1998, J-pod is now down to 25 whales. With bustling port cities like Vancouver and Seattle surrounding Puget Sound, engine noise from ships echoes all the way down to the sea floor, drowning out their vocalizations and driving them to change their natural foraging and feeding habits.Īs international shipping continues its rapid rise, the orcas are in decline. J-pod vocalizes-without scaring away the salmon, of course.įor Kiki and her family, sound is pollution. But Kiki’s family speaks its own orca dialect. They even have their own language of clicks and calls, and use echolocation to “see” sound. They gather in joy for birth and mourn together in death. They have personalities and family bonds that last a lifetime. As humans, we share a lot in common with orcas.
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