SCRIMSHAW

I felt sometimes like I was trying to carve scrimshaw

while wearing oven mittens.

Elizabeth Gilbert

I had to look the word up.

Delicate engravings done

by seafarers on whalebone.

Gilbert was referring to

her writing life

and what it took to keep

the practice alive.

To scrimshaw on

tooth or bone,

metaphorically speaking,

to employ the fine point

of an engraving tool,

you must first employ

another mightier implement,

a harpoon.

You must hurl it into

a great ocean.

You must kill a whale.

Life is my leviathan.

Ishmael, Ahab, White whale…

teachers one an all,

help me to stay committed to the chase.

But let me learn to make compassion,

kindness, my harpoon.

Only then can I truly do

the more delicate work

of writing down the bone.