To Sing a New Song

 

Melissa Hafting photo

"You can learn to whisper,
to turn up the volume,
to sing within the family
of animals."

       - Richard Louv, in Our Wild Calling

I have looked into the huge, ancient eye
of a grey whale, who whooshed up
alongside my boat, thrilling me
to my toes. Her breath smelled 
as old as time, a mix of ocean floor
and fetid air; us, sharing that breath,
that gasp of oxygen, that moment in time
unlike any other, before her head lowered,
her back arching, fluke rising,
then vanishing under the sea.

That day, we passed a small island of rocks,
inhabited by sea lions. When we cut the motor,
and drifted, we heard their growls and barks,
they turning their eyes on us, strange creatures,
gently rocking in the sea in our red survival suits
and rubber boat.

In the trough between waves, small puffins
were bobbing importantly atop the waves,
looking like small officious hoteliers,
suave in their tuxedos and smiling beaks.

They say each whale has her own song, 
communing over vast distances:
certain sequences indicate location,
gathering, or alarm.
Once, on the other side of the Island,
a man with a flute lowered himself 
into the sea, with a microphone.
When he played a series of notes,
dolphins echoed them. After a time,
they began to improvise their own riffs
on the notes he had played
 - an inter-species jam session.
This thrills me.

Perhaps what we, as a species,
need to learn most is to
quiet ourselves, to watch,
to listen, to what the singing earth
is trying to tell us. Within the
family of animals, together
we can begin to sing
a new song, one of joy
and communion, concern,
compassion, hearts open
to every other
living thing.

Day 6