Deeps
A poem
You’ll hear plenty of whale talk in Dominica.
Off Scotts Head, waters plunge
more than a mile deep
and from these waters sixty-footers
breach and stare you down
like giant oncoming catamarans.
Pods are easily located.
The bulbous-headed bott
often visit the surface
and you will quickly note
there is no stranger music than
the migratory singing humpbacks’ theremin wails.
It happens all the time,
there’s no off-season here,
boats don’t need to burn
a day’s fuel to find
the beaked, the brydes, the minkies and the pilots.
And on the odd day when they are scarce
you may console yourself with dolphins,
especially the spinners
that leap and twirl like acrobats
in the circus of your wildest dreams.
Remember:
drop-offs are close to shore
and you are never very far from the deeps.