Exhausted
old
he exerts himself
no longer
Nothing left
no energy to expend
for simple
useless
survival
He does not eat
or sleep
but calmly closes his eyes
dying
at last
drifting with the tide
and
returns once more
to land
Originally written on 19 August 1983, about a grey whale that stranded during our severe spring storms the previous March. Numerous whales and other marine mammals were literally bashed against the rocks by the unusually strong storm-driven waves.
