Ningen: An Arctic Sea Creature Finds Home
Poetry Writing Contest response
I‘m neither whale nor human,
not female and not male,
forgotten species in between.
Hiding where nobody finds me,
in deep arctic waters, unseen.
Born tiny white blubber,
in underwater wasteland, nowhere to hide,
sea predators kept chasing me.
Crawling on land, I gorged on plants,
soon towering over mammoth trees.
You’re too tall, a birdie said, sitting
on my sun-burned scalp.
They’ll chase you, like a giant trophy.
I looked down, ground far away,
and returned to my home, the sea.
I dived in silence, night and day.
Travelled for miles, surfing on currents.
Was I alone? No one else around?
Eyes blinked, hiding between rocks.
Scared of me, not daring a sound.
I was different, the tallest one now.
Ocean giant, casting big shadows.
Yearning for companionship,
floating, sharing plankton, creating bubbles
by letting big…
