Whales

On the way home we stopped at 3 in the afternoon, in a motel in Yachats, for the night. The sea was calm, and I did a double-take as a white tower of water rose from the flat blue surface, followed by the curve of a silvery scimitar, or something like it. And then another. 

We had seen two migrating whales the day we spent at Shore Acres among the wild rocks, but this was more than two. Three. Five. Eight? A pod. A pod of whales, directly outside the window, in the blue quiet sea. They continued throughout the afternoon, through the sunset, and then of course we couldn't see. The next morning the sky and the water were the same silver, but there. A white puff. The pod had camped right offshore, opposite our windows. A miracle. 

Extra is Sue, Lying Down in the cove in full view of the whales. This poem, then, seems to me to say something about this birthday celebration. 

Become Becoming
By Li-Young Lee

Wait for evening.
Then you’ll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.
Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes
and pretended to be invisible.
The one to whom you told every secret.
The one who made a world of any hiding place.

And don’t forget the one who listened in silence
while you wondered out loud:

Is the universe an empty mirror? A flowering tree?
Is the universe the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky’s last blue
(the color of homesickness).
Then you’ll know the answer.

Wait for the air’s first gold (that color of Amen).
Then you’ll spy the wind’s barefoot steps.

Then you’ll recall that story beginning
with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing
shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock’s face
is not his father’s face.

And the hands behind the clock’s hands
are not his mother’s hands.

All of Time began when you first answered
to the names your mother and father gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.
Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you’ll remember your life
as a book of candles,
each page read by the light of its own burning.