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alan-mcclurePoems
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.
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Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 3:06 PM UTC
The Whale
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.
alan-mcclure
Written by
alan-mcclure
Scottish
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 3:06 PM UTC
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