Jean Shepard

Sidebar: Missionary of the Arts

Jean Shepard
Professor of Humanities, South Campus

View from the Shore

My sad friends, you who believe the world will get better,
let’s take our tears to the porpoise who has no tears
whose face is only wet with sea and salt.
We can admire his easy moves as he slips between two worlds,
his grin in the air where we are rarely smiling,
his quick rainbow arc when he slides
down into things we cannot see.
We can stand on the sand and think of the porpoise world
smile at his curving mouth, his sleek, shiny skin
that never seems old, his whistles and squeaks that are a language,
not our own, but surely, we say, profound.
We can watch him ride the waves and call it playing
as his thick body glistens in the foam, his tail flips,
his fin disappears into the ruffled grey water.
Underneath, like a thousand migrating birds,
the unseen whiting twist and turn.
They are always too many in the churning surf
and their desperate bodies too slow
to escape the smile that opens.

Jean Shepard

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