- We're the Crusader, out of Petersberg,
- bound for whaling grounds.
- Creaking, dipping, rolling with the sea's heaves
- till we enter the still, flat Sound
- as guests.
- Will they accept our presence, receive us?
- We wait, attending their decision.
- And they come. The first ones afar,
- spouts against the shoreline.
- Then a pod, to starboard, in arms' reach.
- They slip under us, tenderly, rising aport.
- The sound. The sound.
- Air drawn in to those enormous lungs,
- sighed out slow and strong,
- translating for every sea being
- from Drake Passage to the Bering Sea,
- giving them light, giving them voice, here,
- where we can listen in.
- More come, they stay, and grow familiar.
- Awake and dreaming we hear them,
- breathing for their world.
