Giles Goodland
Whale Watching
Rolling the soggy tent into its bag
we hardly have the energy left
to shout Madeleine out of the rain.
She climbs into the campervan clutching
some twigs, eager for the next campfire.
At two and a half, it’s hard to convince her
that some things just end.
Hours left before the ferry: we drive
to a headland and watch for whales,
all but one knowing how remote a chance
we’re waiting for, at season’s end,
with visibility so low. We loudly
speculate where they might be: gone to lunch,
sheltering from the rain, tumbling
& somersaulting under the sea’s grey skin
or at their blubberry grandma’s, sitting down
to a tea of fish. Packed in this toddler-size
home we watch curtains of rain draw across
the sea, while a desire surfaces: to say
“remember this, remember me,” to etch
into her memory as a whale’s fluke
would write to us in water: indelibly.
We’re waiting for a touch of that
enormity, that always possible
upwelling to puncture the grey surface
of days: all waiting, as the hours before
the ferry pack themselves into the past;
waiting, playing, conducting conversations,
cooking, almost as if we were not,
and never had been waiting at all.
Page(s) 46-47
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