Tides by Shannon Webb-Campbell

Poem title: Tides Poet Name: Shannon Webb-Campbell Poem begins: Are whales deep thinkers? ask the tides that chart the rise and fall on August’s fullest lunar night when the fish are jumping and your moon’s bleeding Tell me the answer at high tide I’ll ask you again at low tide six hours and 13 minutes later to see if you mean it Come back to the same spot a refrain, tell the tides again, ask what moon day it is work 24 hour and 52 minutes into a tidal rhythm. Tell me about the whale carcass, whose rotting body has washed to shore harbour locals are walking around holding their noses Circle back, and plant some cedar in earth it takes a village to dispose of a dead whale their bones later shipped away to a museum Tell me the question at high tide I’ll answer again at low tide six hours and 13 minutes later to see if you remember If whales are deep thinkers, do they know it takes one day and 52 minutes for a point on earth to be noticed by the moon? humans believe logic is time we’re all shift workers here on the lip of Atlantic End of Poem. Credits: Copyright © Shannon Webb-Campbell Forthcoming in Lunar Tides by Shannon Webb-Campbell (Book*hug, April 2022). Shannon Webb-Campbell is a member of Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation. Her books include: Still No Word (Breakwater 2015), I Am A Body of Land (Book*hug 2019), and the forthcoming Lunar Tides (Book*hug 2022). She is a doctoral student at the University of New Brunswick in the Department of English, and the editor of Visual Arts News Magazine.