I found their remnants, drowned and buried
below warm waters and swaying wrecks,
hiding beneath centuries of sand,
their large, starched bones watery tombs.
They were scattered; our hands discarded
their dead in pieces,
the hunt for a loved one
impossible among the spinal columns
of diasporal sorrow.

I could feel their presence,
a large and looming shadow
at the corner of my eye,
accusing my flesh of brutality and
a sadness long forgotten by man.

I found their young there,
the kidnapped ones, slaughtered,
their cries trapped in fine needle bones
that sweep this ocean's floor.
Their songs adrift on currents
in search of a deep shadow
to call home
or a fountain of love
spewed to the trade winds.

Mothers, tasting the blood of their young,
frenzied inconsolable in sonar grief,
love song in throat,
echoed themselves off every surface.
They flung themselves, heaven bent
and hung themselves on our boats,
sacrificed on beaches of men.

I can still hear them calling,
mourning the young, the old, the slow;
a dream haunt,
the wailing of whales