For the first time in almost a century the
oceans were quiet;
the deepness pinging nothing, like the
waves ceasing to roar.
Inside that void you could hear the earth heave, feel the fathomless conversations of leviathans.
An expanse, a wilderness.
Did they wonder at the absence of our unceasing rumor?
Or did the space dredge up faint memories of silence in a thick,
deep blue?
First, a whisper – then threaded calls stretching the ten thousand leagues beyond sound, voices lapping the jawbones of ancestors
lying dormant on the dark sea floor.
Scientists studying North Atlantic right whales in Canada’s Bay of Fundy found a noticeable decrease in the animals’ stress hormones directly after September 11, 2001.
Nineteen year later, during March, April, and May of 2020, an unprecedented reduction in boat traffic in Alaska’s Cook Inlet resulted in calmer waters for beluga whale pods.
It is believed that in these quiet times whales find hunting and communicating easier,
and return to waters they
previously abandoned.
Allison E. Fischbach 