Humpbacks
by: Mary Oliver
There is, all around us,
this country
of original fire.
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something
has to be holding
our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else
we would fly away.∞
Off Stellwagen
off the Cape,
the humpbacks rise. Carrying their tonnage
of barnacles and joy
they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it
like children
at play.
∞
They sing, too.
And not for any reason
you can't imagine.∞
Three of them
rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive
deeply, their huge scarred flukes
tipped to the air.
We wait, not knowing
just where it will happen; suddenly
they smash through the surface, someone begins
shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge
upward and you see for the first time
how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again
through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them
for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky--
like nothing you've ever imagined--
like the myth of the fifth morning galloping
out of darkness, pouring
heavenward, spinning; then∞
they crash back under those black silks
and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you
know what I mean.
∞
I know a captain who has seen them
playing with seaweed, swimming
through the green islands, tossing
the slippery branches into the air.
I know a whale that will come to the boat whenever
she can, and nudge it gently along the bow
with her long flipper.
I know several lives worth living.
∞
Listen, whatever it is your try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like the dreams of your body,
in spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittering fire
where everything,
even the great whale,
throbs with song.
Oliver witnesses something miraculous in this poem--the humpbacks launching themselves impossibly to the heavens, shedding the gravity of their bodies for a few tiny moments before being pulled back, back into the black silks of the sea. It's a sight that makes Oliver unconsciously shout for joy as the great whales breach and dive and then breach again.
You can't plan for moments of joy or inspiration. They just happen. This morning, after I dropped my son off at school and wife at work, I looked at the sky and saw the possibility of wonder. A thin ribbon of gold light was just unstitching the clouds on the horizon. So, I texted one of my best poet friends whom I know for a fact is a wonder-chaser: "Do you want to watch the sunrise from the roof of the library? It looks like it's going to be pretty good."
In ten minutes time, we were standing on top of the library, looking out at Lake Superior as the sun transformed the water and clouds into a gift of color and light. It happened almost suddenly. One second, everything was gray and gloomy, the next, the world was on fire, as if some great humpback had just breached the sky and scattered gold and pink flames along the curve of the planet.
It was gloriously transcendent. Just as the whales in Oliver's poem shed their tonnage by leaping from the ocean, I felt myself become lighter as the sky simmered around me. I almost laughed from the sheer joy of the moment, and I was sharing it with a poet friend who got it. Who understood my impulse to drop everything just for the possibility of amazement.
So tonight, Saint Marty shares with you, his faithful disciples, a little piece of his humpback experience from this morning.
The whales were jumping in great gold and orange showers across the sky, their bodies singing psalms of praise.
❤️
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