Blue Monday!

My contribution to "Blue Monday" are pictures of the Pacific Ocean and the Humpback Whale with baby (though you can't really see the baby in the pictures) that my husband saw during a June trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico which included an ocean cruise. It was very unusual to see a humpback whale during this time of the year, so everyone was very excited. The ocean is so blue and the sky follows suit; the wonders of God's creation were experienced first-hand!

To participate in 'Blue Monday', go to Smiling Sally's Blog, link is above on title of this blog! You can join in the fun of sharing blue pictures also.

Humpbacks

There is, all around us, this country of original fire.

You know what I mean.

The sky, after all, stops at nothing so something has to be

holding our bodies in its rich and timeless stables or else

we would fly away.

Off Stellwagan, off the Cape, the humpbacks rise.

Carrying their tonnage of barnacles and joy

they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it

like children at play. They sing, too.

And not for any reason you can’t imagine.

Three of them rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,

then dive deeply, their huge scarred fluke

stipped to the air. We wait, not knowing

just where it will happen; suddenly

they smash through the surface, someone begins

shouting for joy and you realize it is yourself as they surge

upward and you see for the first time

how huge they are, as they breach,

and dive, and breach again through the shining blue flowers

of the split water and you see them for some unbelievable

part of a moment against the sky

—like nothing you’ve ever imagined —

like the myth of the fifth morning

galloping out of darkness, pouring

heavenward, spinning; then they crash back

under those black silks

and we all fall back together into that wet fire,

you know what I mean.

I know a captain who has seen them

playing with seaweed, swimming

through the green islands,

tossing the slippery branches into the air.

I know a whale that will come to the boat whenever

she can, and nudge it gently along the bow

with her long flipper.

I know several lives worth living.

Listen, whatever it is you try

to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you

like the dreams of your body, its spirit

longing to fly while the dead-weight bones

toss their dark mane and hurry

back into the fields of glittering

fire where everything,

even the great whale, throbs with song.

~ Mary Oliver ~
(American Primitive)