Black as night over sea
Sleek and graceful, true and free
White as light, as untouched snow
The only hint a splash, a blow
They glide through water, still as glass
They leap through waves, and then they've past
Then after winter's come and gone
They return, to sing us their sweet song

Our Songs

We are never silent
We are never still
We swim the ocean's waters
We sing, we hunt, we kill
As black as shining ebony
As white as striking snow
Our songs are long and haunting
They dip, they swirl, they flow
In times of old, our golden songs
Were heard by all-the small, the great
But now there is no music
Just screams as sharp as slate
We sing, but are unheard
We scream to find our friends
What happened to the silence?
This is no fitting end
We see the fish, and turn away
But still they blast our ears
The looming, grinding ships above
Should no more awaken fears
What happened to the silence?
The rushing of the waves
Our songs, our cries, our silence
It seems they've gone away

Future Hope

Dedicated to Paul Spong and Helena Symonds

Beneath the lapping edge of blue
The waves upon the sand
The tip to another world
The surface of another land
Beneath the shades of blue and green
That shimmer in the sun
In dark and murky waters
A new life has begun
A pinto of black and white
Blinking and unsure
To the surface for the breath
Of life, strong and pure
All around her, family
Swirls of dark and light
Amid a mass of gentleness
Through daylight and through night
Sound surrounds her like a sheet
Of comfort, when they roam
They have no place to rest their fins
Their family is their home
This little one continues on
As black as ink, as white as soap
She is the future generation
She is, the future's hope.

Wandering Hunters

With midnight coats, they ride abroad
The waves of surging foam
Their fins like towers, slice the sea
Wanderers who need no home
As one, they speed through raging waters
Power, beauty, wild, free
Torpedoes through the growing storm
Hunters of the untamed sea
No man can truly hold them
No hurricane may keep them back
No predator can frighten them
Sheathed in white and cloaked in black
What creature can restrain them?
Their power in their very breath
What force can stop their beauty
But one force, only death.

Mother and Son
About Blackney (A38) and Tsitika (A30)

Mother and son glide through the waves
Towers of black in morning-fog haze
With creamy white markings and coats of jet black
They let out their breath with a gunshot-like crack
Above, wings spread wide, is the King of the Sky
While under the waves darts the chum and sockeye
Sleek as torpedoes with teeth to impale
They eat what they need, but are no killer whale
Ahead of the other and battered with scars
Whose tattered old flukes have carried her far
Mother and matriarch, queen of the Strait
She’s watched as the humans brought love out of hate
She glides past the river that bears the same name
Beautifully powerful, free and untamed
Slightly behind her and two times her size
With great sweeping songs to his family he cries
Atop of his back leans his tall curving fin
Wobbling and waving as he faces his kin
The two come together, mother and son
Wanderers, roaming, but never just one
Out of the fog their family comes
And together they hunt the great salmon runs.

A tribute to Luna/L98

The beauty of the earth around
The wild of the sea
Trapped inside a painted beast
Captured majesty
An unknown treasure in our laps
A misplaced angel child
Whose innocence and purity
Left the greedy so beguiled
While wandering a secret path
And losing his dear way
From there the walls closed in around
And led us to this day
A wonder of the world appeared
And sang to us of glee
Of playfulness and freedom lands
The joy of being free
He made us children once again
Though we don’t know how
He danced for us without a flaw
Then twirled,
And took his bow.

Orcinus

The A1 Pod in 1970

A whispy whoof says they’ve arrived
Black shadows in the sea
So grouped together, fins must touch
Gentle , true, and free
In front is old Nicola
As stately as they come
And tucked into her trailing waves,
Her exuberant young son
Just to the side, off to the left
Is floating good old Stubbs
Observing all the chaos, but
Staying far from all the hub
Tsitika hangs back, harassed
While her offsprings’ endless pleas
For play and food and cuddling
Are never quite appeased
Scimitar, ahead a bit,
With her energetic son
Who though mature will still insist
His mother’s duties aren’t yet done
Sophia and her brother
Float gently side by side
With a calmness quite perfected
That years of growing up provides
And leaping from the water
The last one of the group
Sophia’s son attempts to fly
Crashes and doggedly regroups
The 11 of the family
Without a qualm or fear
Their home is where the others are
And neither there nor here

A Simple Good-Bye

A tribute to Quadra/C21, Stormy/A74, and Racey/A59, all whom recently died. It refers to Stormy first (as a 'he', because I always pictured him as a he), then Racey, then Quadra.

As diamonds will do, nestled in caves
And dragonfly wings do in skies
The sun-pearls gleam in the rushing waves
As the ocean echoes with cries
From out of the blue, dark and deep
They rush like shadows alive
And though not a one will whimper or weep
All have arrived to say their good-byes
A mother nuzzles her tired young calf
The little one chirps for farewell
With a nudge from his brother, he glides on past
His voice a sweet chiming bell
By the bay, a young mother sings to her babe
Nudges her sister, rubs with her mother
She drifts off to shadow and slowly she fades
And hopes that the shadow won’t soon claim another
Three siblings jostle and crowd ’round the fourth
She whistles to ease their concern
Her mother lovingly nudges her north
She swims off and never returns
The three young shadows fade and are gone
But their voices are not to be muted
Their families live on, bathed in the dawn
As their memories are softly saluted
With a chorus of cries, chirps, whistles and songs
Their mums, aunts and calves say good-bye
A serenade of love that is pure and life-long
Though their loved ones no more will reply