Out at sea the sun was shining, but only in one place, like a silver dish on the rain-darkened water. A single whale, sated with love, steaming north from Baja, was too distant to see, but we could see where he was breathing: a tree made of water and filled with silver light appeared on the air, already falling, and after a whale-breath, reappeared -- the selfsame form -- a little farther north each time. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org |