A little ditty about the gray whales that are due here on whidbey Island. As someone who has worked for many years in ‘resource extraction’ jobs, like logging, open-pit mining and crab fishing in the Bering sea, for what it's worth I confess my own culpability in planetary degradation.

The last Supper

I imagine that last whale

Coming to a dead stop and just

Floating

And not hearing her song return to her

Lies still gray silent

Not accusing her maker for her circumstances

Even the last whale song is beautiful

They have watched us from the beginning

Bobbing on the surface, splashing, laughing, crying, dying

Not Standoffish at all, for ones so small

Though it turns out that the entire ocean was

Not big enough

We won’t know for sure when the last whale died

Technically speaking

The whale--killers will return from the sea empty handed again

Another venture will be written off as a loss on the balance sheets

The ship will be refitted to hunt penguins or starfish or angels

Then one day a marine biologist or responsible government agency

Someone with authority

Will simply state the obvious, “they are all gone,” dead

Then back to business as usual

Some family in Osaka or Haugesund will look up from their plates

And say, ‘had we known, we would have savored it all the more’

One day the gods will notice how quiet earth is

No clamor of war, no prayers for more

And after seeing no lights on at night for awhile

Will say something like, “huh” now when did that happen?

Obliged.