by Norman Dubie

by Norman Dubie
     Here， on the farthest point of the peninsula
     The winter storm
     Off the Atlantic shook the schoolhouse.
     Mrs. Whitimore， dying
     Of tuberculosis， said it would be after dark
     Before the snowplow and bus would reach us.
     She read to us from Melville.
     How in an almost calamitous moment
     Of sea hunting
     Some men in an open boat suddenly found themselves
     At the still and protected center
     Of a great herd of whales
     Where all the females floated on their sides
     While their young nursed there. The cold frightened whalers
     Just stared into what they allowed
     Was the ecstatic lapidary pond of a nursing cow's
     One visible eyeball.
     And they were at peace with themselves.
     Today I listened to a woman say
     That Melville might
     Be taught in the next decade. Another woman asked， "And why not？"
     The first responded， "Because there are
     No women in his one novel."
     And Mrs. Whitimore was now reading from the Psalms.
     Coughing into her handkerchief. Snow above the windows.
     There was a blue light on her face， breasts and arms.
     Sometimes a whole civilization can be dying
     Peacefully in one young woman， in a small heated room
     With thirty children
     Rapt， confident and listening to the pure
     God rendering voice of a storm.