For Sigrid, our lovely, talented daughter

Amusing The Beasts
by Don Brennan

Ideas
powerful as
great sea beasts
stirring in her mind

She walks the quiet beach
barefoot as a woman at rest
dreadlocks wrapped in the wind
eyes on the horizon
taking a break from downtown
in rolled up baggy jeans
thumbs hooked sideways
in her pockets

Taking a breather from work
left a little early
lied a little to the boss
needing to get to the beach
needing a breath of the ocean

A group of gray whales at rest
just outside the surf
spouting now and again
suspending their tonnage in the currents
murmuring to their children
singing songs on the way to
Baja

A notion stirred some current in her heart
as though someone else had been
moving inside her all day
drifting inside her
leaving her unmoored

The cold sea kisses her feet
soaks her to her knees
makes her trousers cling

She thinks just then
she hears a whale sing

Just the setting sun perhaps
wringing colors out of clouds
or the wind
whispering through her hair

But she thought
she heard them singing

Her own self laughing perhaps
soaking wet from dancing
spalashing like a fool
in love with someone new

Someone she had never known
or had probably forgot
like an old school jacket in a vacant lot

Some new notion of herself
giggling in the surf
amusing the beasts at sea
dancing to their tunes
getting foam all in her hair
almost forgetting she is freezing
almost forgetting to take her wet self
back to the train
before dark

Whales don’t rest long
in local waters

They begin moving south
towards a deep and fertile bay
where they like to love and play
when they are free.