Oliver
“Hawiian and West Indian humpbacks seem less happy to me than whales off the coast of New England.Their songs are playful, staccato, lively. Violins, rather than oboes. When you see them diving and surfacing there is a certain grace, a feeling of triumph. Their slick bodies twist through a funnel in the sea, reach toward the sky; with flippers outstretched, they rise from the pits of the ocean like the second coming of Christ. But the humpbacks in Stellwagen Bank sing songs that fill you to the core, that swell inside you. They are the whales with which I fell in love when I first heard the calls— eerie, splayed, the haunted sound of your heart beats when you are afraid of being alone. Sometimes when i play the tapes of Northern Atlantic stock, I find myself sobbing.”
