Out of Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, Sunday early,

our vessel, bow to stern, some sixty-three feet.

to observe Blue Whales - and we did, off the Fallarones

They were swimming slowly and rose at a shallow angle

(they were grey as slate with white mottling, dorsals tiny and stubby

with broad flat heads of at least one quarter their overall body lengths)

They blew as soon as their heads began to break the surface

The blows were as straight and slim as upright columns

rising nearly to thirty feet in vertical props

Hen their heads