Whale Song

They say to know the song of the whale,
The storyteller, record keeper of the deep,
There must be true desire to want to know it,
To hold it inside and sing it out for the world.

So I say,
Cry out the words of the song,
Release the notes on wings, feather soft and hollow.
Empty like the weight of rock in the canyon,
Empty like the shadow of a new moon.
Fullness hidden by tricks of light
Points of perception and the travels of time.

Let it move
The way Aurora dances on silhouette horizons.
Let the voice sing out,
A deep belly laugh from children at play,
A bird song ringing through the winter air.

Bring the music to my heart.
An arrow released true,
To draw blood,
To feel sacrificial vulnerability and
The power of pain.

Release the notes from the page
From within my body.
There is no skin to contain this sound.
The rhythm comes from within my skeleton.
The marrow of my bones fills the notes and
Hardened calcium finds its place among the
CREAK, POP, BANG, BOOM
Of the body dancing with life.

Let the waves of this song
Flow through my being
With the courage to re-emerge like the whale.
From the depths
Into sunlit sky and fresh air
To take a deep breath
Of new music, of new stories
And release what has traveled so long
In the belly.