Justice (A Sestina)

In the far north, many days come with rain
or winter snow, but still men hunt for whales
with boats, with hooks and trusted iron harpoons.
Nothing can impede their harvest hopes,
whether days are long, short, dreary or clear.
Man’s measure is the color of his rain slick.

On the hardest days their tongues are slick,
Slippery with sea foam mixed with rain
and oil that comes from not quite standing clear
when it spurts from deep within the dying whales.
The men take pleasure in the taste of hope,
in the oily sheen of hooks and iron harpoons.

They don’t think of their hearts as harpoons
beating wild and fast inside their bloody slicks,
driving them always to a nameless hope
of what seems like inner courage in the rain.
They never think of their advantage over whales,
but only of returning somehow lighter, clear.

What little each man’s conscience makes clear
is lost to the contest of wills, not sharp harpoons.
What passes for expression from the whales
is simply pure exhaustion, closed eyes slick
with death, fighting for life in cold, dark rain
and desperate, perhaps, to cling to hope.

For men, the work is all, the harvest’s hopes
no more than what there is to do – clear
skies or cloudy, in thunder, snow, or rain.
They know the sea will bow to their harpoons
and make their ways triumphant over slick
gray mounds of flesh they know as whales.

They think they are inured, then, to the wails
that issue from the throats of those lost hopes,
making sure this final kill is cool and slick,
sure that their hearts are pure and clear
when they lift and lower their harpoons
as their fathers and grandfathers did, in rain

or sun. Yet whales may someday reign
with their own harvest of men harpooned
in terror, eyes slick with fear, vacant, clear.

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A former French teacher, lawyer, peace activist, and yoga instructor, Maril Crabtree believes that a poem’s apothecary of words, of sounds spoken and absorbed, can be a healing force in our world. Her book, Fireflies in the Gathering Dark, received a Kansas Notable Books award. Her poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including I-70 Review, Main Street Rag, Coal City Review, Persimmon Tree, Third Wednesday, Literary Mama, and Poet’s Market. She previously served as poetry editor of Kansas City Voices.