Word for It
Those harbor porpoises
cruising through a glade of bull kelp—
blunt heads rounded, dorsal fins flashing
as they surface and exhale,
dive, disappear, no telling
exactly where they’re going
to break the canopy of their breathing
as they cross the inlet
in tandem—what we used to call
the buddy system, summers at the shore—
is it revery or camaraderie they chase
through drowsy sea lanes
tracking any glimmer a cold current
brings to their indivisible attention?
Or something finer? How clearly
their spent breath carries across the evening—
louder than you think,
louder than they are near—
not effortless or without pleasure
the pressure of the dive
released, arresting our attention now
like sudden fiction.
Nothing I can do
would bring me closer to that sympathy
of plumes and punchlines
traded back and forth—stale air swapped
for a depth charge
mining the harbor to sweep it clean—
if not walking beside a thoughtful friend,
one who knows the names of trees
and which plants to eat
and where to find them,
so I stand here watching porpoises
circle Friday Harbor,
telling you since
witness feeds on witness to survive.
Kevin Craft lives in Seattle and directs the Written Arts Program at Everett Community College. He volunteers as a fire lookout in the North Cascades, where he’s well known among the mountain goats and marmots. His books include Solar Prominence, Vagrants & Accidentals, and Traverse, forthcoming in fall 2023 from Lynx House Press. In 2022 he was artist in residence at Olympic National Park. Editor of Poetry Northwest from 2009 to 2016, he now serves executive editor of Poetry NW Editions.
Read another poem by Kevin Craft appearing in Terrain.org.
Photo by toshiharu_arakawa, courtesy Shutterstock.
