Where are they now, where are they, the fantastic whale pods of my youth?
where we calf-sported
or migrated Great groups of families
ploughing the waves into boiling furrows
Like a rain of bombs we fished the deep sounds
And deflowered their silences with our screams
Later, when the next pod was always smaller …
and the last one was three …
and a long while behind …
Now I plunge like a locomotive across the heaving grey wastes
lie spuming at the sky in the long Atlantic swells
drop like the Angel of terror through a mile of black water …
Where are they now, where are they, the fantastic whale pods of my youth?