" Vigil "
From this small island
I watch ships pass on the horizon.
It rains and I huddle under palm fronds;
the insides of my hands are bowls.
With high tide
a blue whale throws her girth
on the sand. When water recedes
I walk around her; she is a world.
I look into the planet of her eye,
fill coconut cups from the sea,
splash her drying orbs.
I want to be seen.
The watch has begun;
no one should die alone.
I sing songs of my species,
sit near her blow hole
and listen
until her breath becomes shallow
then gone.
By then the stars have poured
their milk across the sky.
© 2003 M. Kathryn Black
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