Old Whaling Towns
March 26, 2020
in class we went
beach-combing
along the Derwent River
they taught us about
the spotted hand-fish
kelp forests
agricultural run-off
overfishing toxic
shellfish
they say
there were so many whales
it wasn’t safe to cross
and people couldn’t
sleep they were so loud
we ran to the shore
to watch them bleed
fill a bay with wine
where now the pademelons
eat bread from your hand
and get sick
it took two hundred years
for whales to come back
I remember being fifteen
running to the beach
to see two – a mother
and her calf
now there’s more Airbnbs
than affordable homes
if those whales come back
they’ll have to navigate
an oil rig
that lights up like the trees
at Salamanca place