Strandings

Their intelligence formidable
Their capacity maybe
Enlightened by the ocean
And their perspicacity
If I stop and think why strandings
In estuaries and elsewhere
And In shallow bays why they happen
Are they Sharing their despair

In the Faroes all the Pilots
Lead by maturity
Apparently like cannon fodder
Inappropriately
Are cut to ribbons every one
All murdered in cold blood
And dragged ashore this carnal war
Becomes the final flood

The ascendancy of being
The predominance of force
Such integrity and wholeness
An ensemble all on course
An all-embracing family
Their feral lives in sink
Translocated suddenly
And taken to the brink

In the minds of the primitives
A so called stranded whale
Must be seen as a godsend
The fact it missed its trail
So much flesh and blubber
For the community
To share among its members
Fresh feral and free

The savage thrust within them
The norse descent would drive
Those served by supermarkets
Back when to survive
You become a butcher
And could flense for all you were worth
And help yourself to a months supply
Care of mother earth

These become excuses
Throwbacks from before
When vikings raped and pillaged
Along the foreshore
They an
island people
Cut off by the expanse
Of tides and storms and mayhem
And what was their true romance