Sounding by Adam Cairns

Eubalaena, the right whale, named by the men

who killed it. Slow swimmer, shallow feeder,

floats when dead. Right.

Against the grey sea, their dark-rimmed

backs signal breath. They embrace face

to face, travel long distances as mother

and calf. At rest, gulls on their pock-marked skin

feed on their flesh.

Inuit whalers find a bowhead

on the Alaskan coast. A hand-thrown

exploding harpoon tip

embedded in its side. Dated 1885.

For years the plankton thin. Fish

that feed on the plankton thin.

The seabirds. The grizzlies that feed

on their washed-up carcasses.

If a whale falls, it feeds the seabed

for decades. In Provincetown,

tourist boats leave the harbour in spring.

For the whales.

You used to be here. Sometimes

you still are. You keep returning to this.

I stayed when I should have gone.

The cow and calf followed for half

a morning. They knew the calf

would surface first. Knew the cow,

the others, would never leave

a dead calf.

At dawn, closer than expected,

a fluke splashes the surface. Gulls

lift, wheel for a moment, salt air.

Out there, dark ocean, the right whale surfaces.

Diatoms flash in their millions in time

with her song.

____________

Adam Cairns returned to poetry after a long silence and now writes from Herefordshire, between the Malverns and the Wye. He holds an MA in Writing Poetry from the Poetry School and Newcastle University, chairs Ledbury Poetry, and edits the Newport stanza anthologies. His poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, Acumen, The Honest Ulsterman, The Ekphrastic Review and Ink Sweat & Tears, among others.