This time last year, on a Skype call to my Seattle family, I was shown a painting by my then 13 year old granddaughter, Natalie. It is so glorious it inspired a whole poem, so much fun to write. In August, I published a new collection, It’s Only a Matter of Time – even though time, as such, does not exist. It was officially launched by the Dead Good Poets Society of Liverpool in December, at the MerseyMade Cafe in Paradise Street. So, happy February. Enjoy!
Origin Story
for natalie
In the beginning
there was a whale
big and blue and beautiful
perfectly big
beautifully blue
Alone in an ocean of nothing.
Or so it seemed.
And in the beginning
there was a universe
so infinitesimally,
illogically small
that no impossibly
large whale
could ever know,
or understand
why, or where it might be.
And the universe floated
alone in the ocean of nothing.
Or so it dreamed.
The whale moved
in perfect peace
throughout the silent space
Quite unaware of the presence
of the infinitesimally tiny
Insubstantial universe
Blissfully resting
Alone within Its silent
lack of being
anything more
than being
infinitesimally
small.
And since there was
no day or night
the absence of light
signified nothing more
than freedom to move
for the whale who swam.
And its tail began
to swish back and forth
and the sound was
perfectly swishy
if illogical because
what was there
to swish against?
Nothing but perfectly
nothing. And yet—
The motion of swishing swished around
The whale began
to perceive a sound
and something stirred
inside its heart.
Like the start of a feeling,
that tickled its mind
and it found itself reeling
with a kind of a knowing
that its perfect body
with its perfect tail
had created something
out of nothing—
out of nothing but itself.
Out of nothing
but itself
and the nothingness
of the void.
And the sound shimmied
around its body and fluttered
across its fins.
It brushed its nose
as the whale turned and tumbled
through the darkness,
till the tickle became a giggle
and the giggle became a guffaw
and the guffaw gurgled
and gushed
from its giant mouth
in a rhythmical, tonal pattern of sounds
that merged with the swishing
Till then the whale
found itself wishing
that such a wonderful sound could be shared —
If only —
If only —
There was something else there.
and so it was,
right there and then
even though there was
no when
that the whale created song.
And as the whale swam
and its tail swished
the veil of nothing
began to shift
and the whale sang
and its heart lifted
feeling resistance
a form of insistence
that nothing was moving
while everything changed.
And somewhere, somehow
from the deepest depths of its
infinitesimally tiny beingness,
the universe felt a shiver –
a shock of a shake
and it began to crack
and to creak
and to cleave in two.
Just in time for the whale
to swim through
and the song shivered
and shook each piece
till a river
of universal smithereens
smashed and crashed
into being
a glowing
unknowing
festive flowing
showing of itself
in the trail of a whale.
So it was that the whale
swam on
and sang on.
And in its wake left
the makings of galaxies
planets and stars
meteors and matter that is
and isn’t (as far as can be seen)
there at all.
On and on the whale sings
and swims,
swishing its tail
fluttering its fins,
rejoicing in the sound
of its voice,
never looking backwards
because there is
no back or forth
no south or north
no up nor down
no in or out
in the endless nothing that is
and is not—nothing.
And still the whale takes enormous pleasure
in constantly bringing
into being
the stuff of the universe.
The universe which forms
and endlessly reforms
all the while tirelessly
yearning
to return
to its once upon a time
infinitesimally
tiny, dream of itself.
Flloyd Kennedy