June 20, 2013

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  Whale*

     

   

  He remembers he could smell it before he saw it

  What was left of it before the ravens and gulls finished it

  Once he even caught a family of coons slipping from the woods

  To dine on it - Snuffling and snouting their way

  Through the last vestiges of drift-net

   

  He recalls a flawless flooding moon last summer

  And the wild wind that must have floated it on an exaggerated tide

  From some remote deserted cove

  A bloated gas-bag still enmeshed - It must have perished terrified

  Exhausted by its battle within its prison of fine plastic fiber

   

  Now all that was left was a skeletal abstraction

  A symmetrical museum piece sculpted by some classical sea-god

  Cleansed whitened bleached and anchored by shifting sand and gravel

  Its graceful bones strung with trembling threads of weed

  And long strands of snake-like kelp dried stiff

   

  Fortunately its last breath sucked through its breathing hole

  Was unheard by bearded professors from Orono

  And do-gooders with winches and yellow poly ropes

  Their wenches tearfully attempting to atone for a heartless humanity

  That could have allowed this to happen

   

  He wondered when he first saw it

  How old it was before it died and did it father itself or mother itself?

  In other words - Duplicate itself

  Has it learned its lesson and is it swimming free again

  Sounding in safety beyond the great banks?

   

   

  *Repost in memory of another large gentle animal recently washed up

    in similar condition on an island off our Maine coast.

   

   

  Please:

  There are many government programs that fund the arts: Go to "Arts.gov "

  then write to your representatives as I have done to ask for their help in

  keeping our Xanga alive

   

   

   

   

   

  • 10:46 am
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