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Whale Scales



The wind is learning to whistle. It pipes through the rotary washing line while I’m putting extra pegs on the dog’s blanket. The clouds go up so high, this patch of earth seems shrunken. This scale of things in which I am barely a speck is comforting. The wind grows, from a whistle to a whale song.
I followed my father along the seawall on a post stormy day and I was about six and the wind was lively but warmish. Wave spray was catching at my legs, the cheeky stuff. Gulls, more gulls than usual, spun overhead, back and forth to the odd shaped rock where my father stopped and waited for me to catch up. The air stank but it wasn’t like the sewage outflow. And there, when my eyes realised what they saw, I learnt the true magnitude of the ocean. A blubberous mountain of whale lay turned and smashed on the shore. And the scale of things opened up; I was barely a speck but I was a speck of this vast creation; and it struck a ceaseless awe in me. 


Comments

Geo. said…
I know poetry when I read it. Lily, you're remarkable.
31 August 2012 at 01:04
Stephanie V said…
Nothing like the ocean to make you feel small. You've captured the wonder of seeing not only the enormity of the whale, the ocean and the storm but the relative smallness of humanity.
31 August 2012 at 17:03
Lynn Proctor said…
your beautiful words put me in remembrance of a day at the bay i had long ago :)
31 August 2012 at 17:49
Lisa Southard said…
Thank you so much lovely people :-) Your comments always give me a glow!
31 August 2012 at 22:14
Suze said…
I'm with Geo.
1 September 2012 at 14:00
Susan Flett Swiderski said…
Wow. It sounds like that was an awe-inspiring day. (Like your writing.) Just beautiful.

I've never seen a whale stranded on the beach, but it'd be an unforgettable experience. Thanks for making us feel it with you.

Have a super weekend.
31 August 2018 at 13:02
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