Death Of A Whale Poem by Pete Crowther

Like some great fallen king
or god from outer space
it lies now dead and lifeless
on the shore. I estimate it weighs
some thirty tons or more.
We stand around, a little crowd
of pygmies who have crept
out from the shelter of the trees
to gawp at it and feel
an unaccustomed sense of wonder
and amazement as we gaze upon
its sheer bulk and size.

It was a week ago
when early in the morning
this great whale turned and
swam into the river’s mouth.
Somehow he’d lost his way
and found himself alone
and far away from his home waters
in the rolling ocean deeps
of mid-Atlantic in whose dark depths
he moved and had his being,
plunging down to seek the
giant squid on which he fed
and bursting through the waves
to breach in all his majesty
of power, and beauty too.

It was the worst mistake
he ever made to swim into the river
for starved and dehydrated, he
soon lost the estuary’s deep-water channel
to struggle in the shallows
on a falling tide then find himself held fast
in clinging mud. The more he threshed
and flailed, the more he sank
into its soft embrace and as he rolled
it oozed into his blowhole; thus he died.

It came too late the next high tide
that lifted him to float again
and wash him clean of mud.
For seven nights and seven days
he has drifted up and down
the river with the tide,
but now he’s beached,
this lovely whale we mourn.
Look well upon him for
tomorrow the fellmonger will come.

Envoi

Coincidentally
in today’s newspaper I read
that Japan, a civilised nation,
slaughters more
than one thousand
whales per annum, all
for scientific research, it’s said.
Sadly supply of whalemeat
for human consumption
exceeds demand so
most of these noble creatures
with whom we share our planet
end up as dog food in Japan.