'Basking Shark by Norman MacCaig'

Basking Shark

 

 

 

 To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,

     To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea

     Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.

 

 

 

     But not too often - though enough. I count as gain

5    That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain,

     That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.

 

 

 

     He displaced more than water. He shoggled me

     Centuries back - this decadent townee

     Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree.

 

 

 

10   Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring

     Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling,

     Emerging from the slime of everything.

 

 

 

     So who's the monster? The thought made me grow pale

     For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,

15   The tall fin slid away and then the tail.

 

 

 

Norman MacCaig