An odyssey

The realness of a great expanse
Of ocean
And the great romance
Of hump back whales
Of a new born soul
As white as snow
Who must take his role

Seriously he must be aware
Of the subtle symphonies they share
Soothing given and absolute
To create such music
An immortal root
Flung far and wide and beyond
The sky and alliance and an intimacy
Of mother and child
A place to be

A togetherness and an honest bond
Living mountains that so respond
Magical spells that capture all
The matriarch duty bound to haul
Her baby across the many miles
The journey starts and their will be trials
And tribulations One can say
For Antarctica is far away

At present a serenity
Exists below the waves they be
Learning to dance learning to see
Life is curiosity
Down at the bottom
Where the sand is white
And his own shadow he does catch sight
Plays like any child would play
Learning to swim and pave his way

He will be with his mother for a whole year
There is much to learn and that is clear
He is very buoyant and needs to learn
How to really wait his turn
To stay submerged with difficulty
To use his flippers and tail and be
Able to stay close able to be
Under her body which is key

But he has to breathe so he has to rise
Already be is quite a size
2000 kilos 15 feet long
So much to learn and things can go wrong
Babies really have to fear
The first migration its very clear
Learning fast is what you do
With Tiger Sharks and Orca’s who
Will soon make mincemeat of a soul
Who is still too young to be in control

As they rise in time together they
See the purple colours and blues away
Beyond and above a redness too
An artists palette good and true
For 7 million years these whales
Have migrated across the world their tails
And taken them far both high and low
From the tropics to the cold ice flow

Some 10’000 miles what an odyssey
For its there they will eat and clearly be
He will be in her slip stream
And seldom rest
They will sing their songs
It will be the test
Of a lifetime really
In every way
The endless sea
Day after day

Learning to glide learning to be
Still almost statuesque superlatively
Expressively dancing
A tranquil refrain
Inseparable really
So much to gain
Growing bigger each day
60 kilos or more
from the rich creamy milk
She holds in her store

They must stay together
For Killer Whales will
Take whales apart
And sharks will kill
They are fast they are savage
And hungry as hell
And split up from mother
Can be a bad spell

They have to watch out
For the old fishing gear
Getting tangled in all of that
Well all now fear
Hump backs hAve huge flippers
And so Awkward they be
And it cannot be easy
To use them and see
And All the while learning,
To sing songs that will
Be universal and honestly spill
A lasting refrain across all these miles
Then there are other males
And a female with a calf
Might push some of their dials

With males all around her
Hoping that she
Might give them a promise
Thats how it could be
The males fight it out
And females will choose
Which males they fancy
After they peruse

The extent of their passion
The journey goes on
A coming of age for the males
Many on
Their journeys too
Getting use to their skin
To their manoeuvrability
If they can win
The heart and the mind
Of a female like mum
Who may have no suitors
And may like a chum
It could be a happening
Really who can say
She makes her choice
The others swim away

Now its November
The Sea’s getting cold
Its dangerous for certain
On feeding they are sold
Lots of fresh fish
Whole shoals will be there
The migration is over
And now all can share

With a heart weighing as much
As 3 men
And a brain and two eyes
Just think agen
Such massive great souls
With memories long
Sharing their wealth
And each mindful song
That releases such sentiment
Passion and nerve
Such communication
With such light and verve

The times come for feasting
Of shoal after shoal
The flight of the silver
The bubbles the goal
The tail lobs the need for
A great cultural flow
The extravagant nature
Of wanting to know

4000 kilos of fish everyday
Strained through our baleen
Mother can say
How to catch dinner
We all take our turn
Using the bubbles
From knowledge we learn

We are the greatest
The largest around
We carry a culture
And are always bound
For somewhere where ever
Theres fish in the pot
Born to be free
And to see such a lot

We should be endangered
Away from harpoons
The Japanese science
The ugly tunes
They play out across ocean waves
When they can
After our blubber
Despite the great ban

They hard as nails
With spirit on fire
Killing us painfully
Making life dire
For us and our offspring
Really they must
Realise we really
Know they disgust

Their own fellow citizens
And many more
Watching us slaughtered
and dragged off to shore
Filling the ocean
with blood and with gore
For that is what the Japanese
want to do
Murder and slaughter us
Honest its true