Belly of the Whale

BELLY OF THE WHALE

I know the black-pitch dark in the belly of the whale

I’ve tried calling the Minister for Loneliness

The line’s unfailingly engaged

 If words cajole experience into shape and delineate its edges,

let me own the contours of forlornness ~

offer radical compassion to embarrassment and shame.

Let me wheedle three words into utterance ~

smash the silence of stigma to smithereens.

Let me tell you ~

I am lonely

 

Even in the whale’s belly, I foster curiosity ~

make room for wonder   sculpt space for small joys.

Catch the train from Castlerock to Derry.

Eavesdrop on one-sided susurrations of ordinary lives.

Surrender through the arched barrel vault tunnel

under Mussenden’s folly of aching sadness

to surf and sand of Downhill Strand

and mindfully, in the moment,

join the conversation between railway track and shore.

I cannot claim exclusivity to loneliness

or to hearing the glacier’s groan

of ice fracturing from ice.

There are other searchers and seekers in deep time,

perpetually moving forward,

carrying moraine of memories and loss ~

not pretending to know who we are ~

not pretending to know where we’re going.