Twofold Bay Blues    by  Paul Cliff

Davidson Whaling Station
(Kiah Inlet, Ben Boyd National Park)

Here they towed the whales in -
sideswiped -
     chaise-longued with bloat;
     trailing surrendered flukes.
Winched their bulk ashore
with chains and hooks -
     huge, fleshy parachutes -

through thigh-high maddened waters,
to this crude breaking-yard.
Put the boat-spade in their peat-like flesh -
     and junked…

Today the National Park
conserves the timber-propped,
tin-rooved sweatshop
in which the Davidsons performed this work.
Reduced these beasts
to quivering,
brick-sized tofu blocks,
     fed into the try-pots' maw.
     Emptied them of whalesong -
     distilling this pure crude.

Hot, filthy work:

the reek of cooking-down, they say,
carried 15 miles,

as whales smelt their giddy way
past foundering Boydtown -

across the amethystine bay -
to stink out Eden.

© Paul Cliff