Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie’s Substack Audio
Orca Song
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-8:32

That mother orca still carries her dead baby
     Through and through the waves.
Hear the rage and wail. Humans are thieves.
We deserve this destruction and decay.
All of us play roles in this bloody cabaret.
“But no,” you say. “Not me. I’m innocent.”
The earth doesn’t accept your pleas and claims.
None of us get to borrow that orca’s grief.
She’s the one who carries her dead baby
     Through and through the waves.

“We can still save the world,” you declare.
     But it’s probably too late.
We’re killing oceans. We’re killing reefs.
We deserve this destruction and decay.
All of us play roles in this bloody cabaret.

Some of us think spirituality will save us.
     But cars don’t pray.
So fuck Prius. Fuck Tesla. Fuck Leaf.
That mother orca carries her dead baby
     through and through the waves,

Through the shipping channels that deliver
	Silverware and serving trays
To our front doors. We consume and sieve.
We deserve this destruction and decay.
All of us play roles in this bloody cabaret.
Our empathy is only a shovel. Collectively,
	We dig and dig the graves.
We recycle hymns and compost poems—
	So misplaced and brutally naive—
While mother orca carries what we’ve killed
	Through and through the waves.
Her ghost will watch us destruct and decay
As we dance in this apocalyptic cabaret.



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Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie’s Substack Audio
Poetry, fiction, and essays by Sherman Alexie
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