Cave of Whale

I was asked to describe the whale we found.
I would say its made of flesh and bone,
At least it would seem to me to be.
Oh no! it can’t be bone it’s from the sea! said she-
But we found it in that hole and there’s no sea to see.
Not even in your memory?

Between then and now, it could have been,
but then again perhaps it was, I mean the mountains rose.
what ever it was and isn’t now, we do believe it couldn’t be
what you thought it might have been, I mean,
Could it have been lets say a guardian.
Look here , touch there, again, once more, what can you see.
A frontier. A shore?

Bide your time, bid the bye and buy the be.
What ever it was, that there was to see, is reflected on the wall.
Take a vantage point. don’t look round and tell me what is there.
I hear the waves upon the coral reef and then the beach.
I see a million sunsets and more on an ocean no longer there.
I feel the swell from beneath as continents shift and meet.
Chalk it off as calcium.

But we asked what is that whale?
An enigma in the ebb of time, a symbol of a larger plan?
Look at the wall and you will see its effigy as well as mine.
Imprinted on the hidden memory of your fantasy.
Touch the skin, smell the brine and build a shrine
To the passage of time and melancholy
No More! No shore to be! Or sea for me -- No more!

Robert Carroll