Whale Watch Poem by Laurence Overmire

One day you wake up at the
Beach
On the Oregon Coast
Not expecting the day to be
Any more exceptional than another

When
In front of you
Through the plate glass window
Of your comfortable bungalonian
Abode you spy
The spout of a whale

A grey whale traveling north
To its Alaskan feeding ground
Not so unusual at this time of the year
When suddenly
In the next moment
The great behemoth
Leaps out of the waves
Twists in the sun
And falls back-first into the
Mesmerizing deep

A few seconds more
Then a second joyful and
Exuberant leap
Then a third
Then a fourth
Then a fifth
And a sixth!

And then nothing

Your breath ripped out of
Your lungs
You gasp
Stunned
Disbelieving
Before all is returned
To the platitude of
Normalcy

Was it a dream or was
It the truth?
Will you ever see anything
Like it, in person, in the flesh
Ever, or Never
In the expanding wave of possibility
Again?

If only our lives could be lived
With such ecstatic boundless Irrepressible abandon
The grateful explosion of life's exhilarant splash
Enough to make every day
A revelation and a wonder
Never to be denied
In the split second spark
Of Eternity.

~ Laurence Overmire