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Echolocation
The whales can't hear each other calling
in the noise-cluttered sea: they beach themselves.
I saw one once- heaved onto the sand with kelp
stuck to its blue-gray skin.
Heavy and immobile
it lay like a great sadness.
And it was hard to breathe with all the stink.
Its elliptical black eyes had stilled, were mostly dry,
and barnacles clustered on its back
like tiny brown volcanoes.
Imagining the other whales, their roving weight,
their blue-black webbing of the deep,
I stopped knowing how to measure my own grief.
And this one, large and dead on the sand
with its unimaginable five-hundred-pound heart.
in the noise-cluttered sea: they beach themselves.
I saw one once- heaved onto the sand with kelp
stuck to its blue-gray skin.
Heavy and immobile
it lay like a great sadness.
And it was hard to breathe with all the stink.
Its elliptical black eyes had stilled, were mostly dry,
and barnacles clustered on its back
like tiny brown volcanoes.
Imagining the other whales, their roving weight,
their blue-black webbing of the deep,
I stopped knowing how to measure my own grief.
And this one, large and dead on the sand
with its unimaginable five-hundred-pound heart.
Sallys poem fick mig att bege mig ut på nätet och läsa mer om dessa fantastiska djur. Här hittar du några fakta om valar. Men jag kom också att tänka på en biografi jag läste för länge sedan, men tyvärr inte minns vad den heter. En blind man berättade om sin uppväxt och sin studietid — bland annat förklarade han hur han avgjorde distansen till en vägg, genom att lyssna till ljudet av sina fotsteg. En teknik som somliga blinda människor upptäcker helt spontant, läser jag nu. National Geographic har en artikel om Daniel Kish, som till och med kan cykla genom att använda sig av ekolokalisering. Om samme man kan du också läsa här.
About this poem
"'Echolocation' is the title poem of my third manuscript. When I read that human noise in the oceans makes it difficult for whales to hear and causes them to run aground, I felt deeply troubled. The whole world felt off-balance and in a particularly precarious state with these gigantic pendulums of the sea suddenly swinging wildly."
-Sally Bliumis-Dunn
About Sally Bliumis-Dunn
Sally Bliumis-Dunn is the author of "Second Skin" (Wind Publications, 2010). She teaches at Manhattanville College and the 92nd Street Y, and she lives in Armonk, N.Y.
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