The Whales Wing

Teachings from a beached whale carcass

The whales wing

of flesh and bone

lays still

upon the moving sands.

Skin ghostly white

saturated with stories

from their long journey

to the arrival of now.

I wonder

what it must have been like

to take its

last

billowing

breath

as the Soul

returned to the sea

of eternity,

and the body

offering itself

as homage

in the name of nourishment

and renewal.

Was there relief

in knowing

how their flesh

would feed

and serve the life

of so many others?

And that part

of its being

would touch the forest

once again?

As its body

its memory

moves through me

down my fingertips

and remembers itself

as written words

upon ligneous paper.

Following the songlines

of diasporic medicine

we ride on the whales wing

far beyond the physical

where life explores itself

through erotic decomposition

back into he heart

of the ecology of death.