Cetacean
Peter Reading 1946 (Liverpool) – 2011
Out of Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, Sunday, early,
our vessel, bow to stern, some sixty-three feet,
to observe Blue Whales -and we did, off the Farallones.
They were swimming slowly, and rose at a shallow angle
(they were grey as slate with white mottling, dorsals tiny and stubby,
with broad flat heads one quarter their overall body-lengths).
They blew as soon as their heads began to break the surface.
The blows were as straight and slim as upright columns
rising to thirty feet in vertical sprays.
Then their heads disappeared underwater, and the lengthy, rolling
expanse of their backs hove into our view -about twenty feet longer
than the vessel herself.
And then the diminutive dorsals
showed briefly, after the blows had dispersed and the heads had gone under
gone under
Then they arched their backs, then arched their tail stocks ready for diving.
for diving.
Then the flukes were visible just before the creatures vanished,
Slipping into the deep again, at a shallow angle.
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Submitted on July 25, 2020
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 49 sec read
- 119 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXB CAB BBB DEX BEE DD XC |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,055 |
Words | 165 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2 |
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