Behold

Half a mile from Plymouth Rock,
The captain cuts the engine and directs
Our attention shoreward to behold
The fabled point of origin

Of our self-governance, but I,
Bitten by a summer laryngitis, drift
Outside the web of language where I do not miss
The ocean's churning underpinnings, which rock us,

Teach our knees how to bend and how to stand.
And as I scan the bottomless horizon
On my own, I alone bear witness
To a humpback whale breaching in the distance. 

I want to speak but cannot catch the moment
That the silence of true self-governance exposes.