The sea cast a gift ashore
one stormy sullen day
and the barren rocky coast
was suddenly recast
as a natural history museum.

A whale.
A real whale, just lying there
shining on the shale

In another time,
we'd have known how to react.
This astonishing bounty
would have been quickly stripped
Bones for building
baleen for support
blubber and oil for fuel.

But now it lay
surrounded by detritus
made of better stuff.
The truth was,
we didn't really need it,
couldn't really use it,
like being presented with
Casablanca on VHS.

A sign appeared:
"Quad bike rides, £2",
red paint on rainsoaked cardboard.
I wasn't tempted.
Children poked it with sticks
in a desultory way,
stricken, intrigued, ashamed,
and utterly dwarfed.

The weeks passed
as we coughed in embarrassment
not knowing what to do,
until finally
someone brought a digger down
and discretely buried the beast.

By now, it will be a perfect skeleton
a prehistoric wonder
an artefact from unjaded days
when nature could still astonish,
trampled by unknowing tourists
as they dream of sunnier beaches.