Whales at Rest

A poem by Kate Gonzalez Long

When a sperm whale needs a nap, she takes a deep breath, dives down about 50 feet, and joins a group of similarly inclined family members to form a perfectly-level, vertical pattern. They balance on end like that — standing, heads up, tails down — near enough to the surface that they divide the calm sea around them into circular columns of shadow and light. Together but apart, they could be commuters waiting silently for the next train.  🔸  A black-and-white snapshot. My family standing in the front yard of the house on Cornell Drive. The flowered dresses and assemblage of my father’s siblings point to one of the Easter brunches where Uncle Arthur, Kodak Brownie in hand, would have herded us out onto the front lawn. He’d have given up getting us into rows and settled for yelling “Hey: Look at the birdie!” Dad’s three sisters are the oldest and came from a time before the invention of the smile. The wives who’d married-in obligingly show an array of mug-shot expressions. My father and my Uncle Walter are faced away from each other with matched grimness. My mother has a tea towel draped over her shoulder, eyes closed. The boy-cousins and my sister look like place holders — their eyes tell you where they really are is “away at college,” or “riding in fast cars.” I am the only actual child. The camera catches me, head tilted back, peering at something above my head; perhaps following Uncle Arthur’s instruction about watching for a bird. I was a distracted child, or so I was often told. I’m cradling something small and seemingly precious in my good hand; pressing it to my heart.  🔸  Uncle Arthur is not in the photo. I want so much for it to be him behind the camera. That way, it’s not 1961 and he’s not already dead from a heart attack last summer. I lightly run my finger over our matchhead-sized faces in the photo, tilting it side to side to see if anyone will swim out of frame. 🔸  No one knew whales slept vertically until a 2008 study documented the behavior. They can dangle that way for hours; quietly smiling at the surface until someone finally decides it’s time to take a breath. Only now do I remember what I was looking for, what I was holding in my hand.

Hear Kate read her poem:

Whales at RestKate Gonzalez Long

3:36

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Kate Gonzalez Long is an elderly abolitionist feminist living and working in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Multiplicity Magazine, Quick Work Volume 3, ONTHEBUS, Side Eye On The Apocalypse, and Method Writers Speak.

Image: Light break family photo by Annie Spratt