"Why Whales Are Back in New York City" by Rajiv Mohabir

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 16, 2017   Why Whales Are Back in New York City   Rajiv Mohabir

After a century, humpbacks migrate again to Queens. They left due to sewage and white froth   banking the shores from polychlorinated- biphenyl-dumping into the Hudson and winnowing menhaden schools.   But now grace, dark bodies of song return. Go to the seaside—   Hold your breath. Submerge. A black fluke silhouetted against the Manhattan skyline.   Now ICE beats doors down on Liberty Avenue to deport. I sit alone on orange   A train seats, mouth sparkling from Singh's, no matter how white supremacy gathers   at the sidewalks, flows down the streets, we still beat our drums wild. Watch their false-god statues   prostrate to black and brown hands. They won't keep us out though they send us back.   Our songs will pierce the dark fathoms. Behold the miracle:   what was once lost now leaps before you.            Copyright © 2017 Rajiv Mohabir. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I wrote this poem to speak out as our government bullies immigrants. This poem is also a love song to my community: It's been a century since Indian indenture was abolished, and we celebrate on the streets of a different empire that would rather see our brown faces deported. How beautiful that the whales, once threatened by a fouled environment, retreated and now come back that the waters are cleaner; we have so much work to do." —Rajiv Mohabir   Rajiv Mohabir is the author of The Cowherd's Son (Tupelo Press, 2017), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize. He teaches at Auburn University in Alabama. Poetry by Mohabir   The Cowherd's Son (Tupelo Press, 2017) "Borderbus" by Juan Felipe Herrera "Nomenclatures of Invisibility" by Mahtem Shiferraw "A Simple Trajectory" by HAUNTIE Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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