You were hit by a ship, they said.
Blunt force trauma.
10 broken ribs.
Fatally unfair –
Did you struggle to stay alive?
For a short while,
swimming in circles,
knowing, the way animals know,
that you didn’t have a prayer?
You washed up on that rough rock beach,
and we trickled in to see –
You, litter now, like the stakes of dry driftwood,
and hollow crusted shells, and smooth, tumbled glass –
(that I placed along the seawall),
as your calling hours called to me.
You, a giant ashore –
majestic, decaying debris.
I explored your remains.
I peered at your busted baleen, your massive bones,
your sturdy vertebrae.
Scattered, in pieces, like bread crumbs,
showing me the way.
Birds calling, landing, flocking, pulling, and pecking
at your plentiful buffet.
You were female, they said.
79 feet long.
Adult.
I watched as crashing waves relentlessly pushed,
your mighty tail still swayed and swooshed,
beseeching you to move again –
The Pacific’s regurgitation,
expelling you from wayward waters,
to join her other “dead to me” daughters,
laid to rest upon the jagged, California coast.
You were headed north, following the krill, they said.
Minding your own splendid self and business.
You buoyed my conviction,
within the ocean’s misty spray,
that life is precious, so precious is life –
in our seas, upon our shores, in our souls,
in all the land, across the world,
Teeming life, indeed, is meant only for today.
I felt a wave of sadness,
And so I said a prayer.
A prayer for you –
The Beautiful Blue Whale of Bolinas,
as your wild, torn spirit
breached through the rainbow’s wall –
you were a lady who reminded me
to be quietly grateful,
to feel and embrace our coexisting circle –
of beings great and small.