The White Whale

In a truculent sea
In the midst of an indifferent world,
The white whale swam on.

The whale was just a whale.

In later years,
As the whale swam on,
The strange mass hanging upon its back
Clinging to some forgotten matter,
Broke off little by little 
Until there were only scars left,
And then even the whale perished,
And its great mass dissipated,
And there was no loss of wonder in the world.

The whale was just a whale.

There was a human, 
And a family,
And a legacy
That spent time brooding over these things
But even they were lost to time,
In a world that did not have a book
But had a story, out of which
Many perish without trace.

The whale was just a whale.

In the world that had the book,
The story ends quite differently,
And the whale is not a whale,
But that’s only life.

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