For ten plus years
they monitor the call,
deepening and desperate,
off range,
of a whale
believed to be
the only one
of its kind
no other marks
his particular rhythms;
with timbre
and timing out of sync
he is doomed
to understand
and not
to be understood
in waters
darker than
the devil’s blood
he exists,
porous and piratical,
his temperament
which once was good
soured from
the endless lonely nights
and vacant days
where he sings,
adamant, tremolo,
of works not
shown to man
turn the dial;
he is in
your neighbourhood
and this is not
a parable