Beached Whale

Beached Whale

wasn’t dead but sheriff felt
beyond saving
so I sat near her eye
until life-light faded.

Whale came back
in my dreams
like stirred embers
of driftwood fire.

Dream-whale swam
into my dying father,
mother, Shura
and Earth, saying

“Sometimes the best
we can do
is be fully present
in hard moments.”

Later, I recalled when
the real whale died,
real sun broke through,
maybe coincidence,

maybe not.

Scott T. Starbuck’s Trees, Fish, and Dreams Climateblog has readers in over one-hundred countries.  A visiting ecopoetry professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, he is the author of Bridge at the End of the World: New and Selected Poems, Hawk on Wire, Industrial Oz, Carbonfish Blues, Lost Salmon, and Between River and Street. He is mostly retired, and traveling with his wife.