By Ethel Mortenson Davis from her new book, The Woman and the Whale
The day was a day of celebration.
A small Right Whale stood vertical,
head out of the water,
straight up in the air,
his dorsal fins reaching like arms
toward the sky.
A woman diver
from a South Pacific Island
said the whale tried to tuck her
under his dorsal fin
when she interacted with him.
At first, she struggled to get away—
until she saw the shark
circling her, trying to get at her.
The whale kept his body between
the diver and the shark.
Then the whale grew agitated,
slapped his tail at the shark,
before finally running it off.
Today, the whale came back with his family,
many heads sticking straight up in the air.
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