In his poem “The Wellfleet Whale,” Stanley Kunitz elegizes the majestic presence of a finback whale beached and dying on the shores of Cape Cod. The narrator of the poem, which is written in five sections, speaks to the whale in second person and recounts the last moments of its life. “You have your language, too, / an eerie medley of clicks / and hoots and trills, / location-notes and love calls,” writes Kunitz in the first lines. The rare sight is then celebrated through the awe of the spectators: “We cheered at the sign of your greatness / when the black barrel of your head / erupted, ramming the water, and you flowered for us / in the jet of your spouting.” This week write a poem that celebrates an animal of your choice. Whether through elegy or ode, which animal speaks to your senses?
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