I Ate Jonah: A Cautionary Tale for the Anthropocene - Gail Onion

[Larry Robinson]

I Ate Jonah: A Cautionary Tale for the Anthropocene 



I ate Jonah.
I was hungry, it was late
I hadn’t eaten all day
and Jonah, was there,
and I ate Jonah.
He needed a change.
Things were not going well
in Ninevah
especially with an angry vengeful
Creator regretting the whole business 
of creating human beings.
I felt him inside me 
writing his theories 
his memoir, his
protests.
This will be a story for the ages.
Whale swallows man,
kind of a metaphor,
prequel to the the man hunting
a white whale 
swallowed by obsession,
to the human species swallowing the earth,
one forest at a time one bird one river one culture.
The day I ate Jonah
was a tranquil summer day.
The sea was calm.
I was dreaming as one does, 
when a world is not very
hospitable for whales.
I was dreaming of a better world
when my kind can sing and visit across the seas
and raise our families in safety
for the next seven generations.
That we would not have to worry about
nuclear submarines, or a diet of plastic in every bite
or an ocean simmering ready to boil.
I mean, where does someone my size go to escape?
Right. There is no exit.
So I ate Jonah.
He wanted to escape too,
from a God who was in those days easily upset 
by humanity’s inhumanity,
but he cannot either,
so I carried him back to Ninevah,
unfinished business, I think.
It is said I vomited him up on the shore,
anyway, not my taste, ultimately, 
krill and plankton are my fare,
and becoming harder to find,
why Jonah was appealing,
for, I am not too big to fail,
in fact the big, the small, the in between
are failing.
A sad note to end on
but I am delivering the message in the bottle
from the Creation to you.
Friends, there is no place to hide
not another land or ocean or forest.
One planet for all and all for one.
However, if you read between the lines
it is the end 
no false modesty 
if I go 
all goes.

with love from
your neighbor
Your friend in struggle 
the Whale

	- Gail Onion