I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

My first whale sighting happened in the Atlantic, near Cape Cod. I convinced my son a move to

Provincetown for a year would be great for us. New Gray School for him, a community of artists for me.

He would experience a beach quite different than Long Beach Island and touristy Atlantic City.

But the clincher was that he would see marine life, whales, sharks, and seals any time he wanted.

Well, three hours into our first whale watching trip, we saw nothing, just a placid ocean

with a few fishing boats.

We spent our time playing 20 questions and eating bags of Cheetos.

I was suffering seasickness from the rocking.

Like the rest of the kids, I could see Langston getting bored.

A naturalist on the loudspeaker occasionally shared some facts about the sea,

such as, did you know a newborn humpback whale weighs 1.5 tons?

Just when the guy began to apologize and to promise a free pass on a future

outing, 70 or so people ran to the port side of the boat. A whale breached the surface of the

Atlantic and spouted water. I wondered if the whale was a mechanical creation.

And yet, the vast sea makes even a whale seem tiny against the depths.

Today's poem probes into the ocean within the self, the mysteries of love.

52 Blue by Sappho Stanley For Laney

I love you and it's like this

In the ocean a whale sings Blue 52

Defined untranslatable to all other whales

A Dying Language It's a party fact swapped around defined, untranslatable to all other wells.

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