Song for a Whale

by Lynne Kelly

I couldn’t stop thinking about how many years it had sat quietly collecting dust and how close it had come to being thrown in the garbage because no one thought it was worth listening to.

He said he’d always been more of a “numbers person” than a “words person” and that it was hard to learn a new language. Seems like having a kid you could barely talk to would be harder.

I didn’t want the game to end that way, leaving that person standing on the earth all alone watching a star. But I couldn’t think of what else to add to the story. I lost.

“He keeps singing this song, and everything in the ocean swims by him, as if he’s not there. He thinks no one understands him. I want to let him know he’s wrong about that.”

Same shape, different colors. Like Grandpa’s poems—the same handshapes but different signs. Blue 55’s own rhyme.

I was like Blue 55, shouting into the void of the ocean, at a frequency too high for anyone to reach.

People who were desperate to communicate always found a way. I’d find a way.

“Time and distance smooth out the memory of what was lost.” I didn’t know anymore if we were still talking about the iceberg, or about 55 and me, or my family, or Grandma and Grandpa. Maybe it was all those things.

55, 55, 55. You’re a poem, did you know that?

Your music sailed through the ocean and over the land and carried me here. Sing your song.

“Grandpa would want me to do for myself what I did for the whale.”