When I say I miss being with the whales,
what I mean is sitting on the panga
in a lagoon in the blue middle of nowhere.
Nothing to do but be this body,
let the other bodies come, rise
from stillness to rest beneath my palm,
the ache to take up space—
live as exclamation,
breach-bloomed in this world.
When I say I miss being with the whales,
I want water
the holiest kind of love.
What I mean is my mother carried me
into the sea, her round belly, joyful
breath giving my lungs their rhythm,
my first cry of grief
to feel myself,
an underwater creature, released
to sudden cold.
When I say I miss being with the whales,
what I mean is, who wouldn’t rather rhapsody
than longing, want the place that dreamed
them wild than the weight of the return.
Listen, some praises are ineffable.
And I may be the mermaid I say I am.
But I-less are the words
that bend us to all we cherish,
what we must bless and save.
Thanks for sharing this. Spectacular.
As a scuba diver who loves the ocean— it’s garden reefs, graceful pelagic dancers, and the mysterious intelligence of whales—Naila’s poem speaks to my soul. All life began in the ocean, maybe that’s why some of us long to return. It feels like home—“what we must bless and save.”