a poem by Stephen Dunn

Beached Whales Off Margate

One day they just started rolling up,
six pilot whales from way out.
Two hundred people pushed three of them back, oh
it took hours. I tell you all this
because two hundred people usually hurt
what they touch. But not this time.
After it was done, they all stood around
for a while, like the humans they used to be,
lamenting the three who were dead.
Separateness set in slowly; an aerial shot
would have shown a group moving away
from its center, leaving in ones and twos
toward their large, inconsiderate houses.

- from Leaving the Bough: 50 American Poets of the 80's; ed. Roger Gaess (New World Paperbacks, 1982)