Elegy for Tahlequah’s Calf
By Paul Nelson
30 July 2018
(Cascadia Magazine) – (For David McCloskey)Tahlequah is daughter of Princess Angelinebrother of Moby, sister to Kiki, motherto Notch. Her second offspring was notborn but born still and still un-named &un-numbered. For five days Tahlequah
pushed her still-born calf around theSalish Sea, perhaps a hope that she’dnot be a parent to bury a child, perhapsa grief vigil, the un-named/un-numberedcalf riding dead on her rostrum five days.
Tahlequah, Cherokee for “plains” or a kindof red rice, or “just two” or “two is enough.”Or a ferry terminal on Vashon. Five dayssays the witness from the whale museumsitting shiva and watching her “deep breaths.”
She carried the dead calf 20 miles one dayin her teeth from time to time through thefull Ripe Thimbleberry Moon, through stageone grief, denial. “We are going to be hereas long as necessary for her.” Here
is what your ferry-line idling of yourgiant truck brings, 108.7 degree lowtemperatures in Quriyat, Oman, elevenfires in the Arctic Circle, momma whalespushing around their still-born calves five days.
But you stayed cool in your air-conditionedlife, you had bigger fish to fry than whaleswho have no lobby, you idled that engineuntil the last glacier died, the last salmonleapt & last forest burned.
These are the stories the children of ourchildren will tell if there are storytellersin their time. How we slept at the switchignored the clear signs of doom, how wewere scholars of war & good tweeters
had nice dinner photographs & saved ourselvesfrom Muslims & immigrants & every vaguethreat the cruel majority could conjurewhile the world burned & one whale momdid all our crying for us.
Paul E Nelson9:24am – 7.28.2018“We are going to be here as long as necessary for her.” –Quote from Taylor Shedd, Program Coordinator for Soundwatch in the Seattle Times, 27 July 2018.Etymology of Tahlequah.Quiriyat in Oman breaks world low temperature record.Arctic Circle burns as record heat broils Europe.
