Whales and the Moon

Cetacean Odyssey


Present at the birth of whales are midwives of the deep,
who thrust the newborn up to where the lungs meet air in quantum leap.

Forged from the Icelandic tongue, "hvalr" becomes English "whale",
pursued for oil and ambergris in barbarous days of steam and sail.

The moon that governs water, the element of mystery,
is sacred to cetaceans and dictates their history.

Skin that withers in the sun is offered to the moon,
whose image in rough callosites recalls an ancient rune.

It is for the silver-faced Selene that the humpbacks sing -
protector of pelagic nomads in their voyaging.

It is the moon that shepherds whales through sea-lanes fraught with hidden threat,
where bones of ancestors recount how ambush dealt a brutal death.

When calves are born their mothers transmute blood to warm galactic streams;
their love unlocks the universe, where moon meets whales in cosmic dreams.

From argonauts to cosmonauts, from fabled Colchis to Selene,
whale migrations re-enact the archetypal epic journey.

The young inherit timeless lore as songlines, ocean lullabies,
to guide them on their odyssey in quest of paradise.