The Whale’s Song by Featured Poet – Alicia Hayden

It sounds a bit like the feeling of watching
honey seep through milk.

A thick, luxurious, gorgeous sound.
A feeling of deep reverberations,

Which echo through a vast, vast
Amphitheatre.

But his stage, once packed with
Kaleidoscope fish and pastel coral,

is an empty shell.
A hollow vessel.

So, he moves on.
And sings to the ocean –

A loneliness you cannot comprehend.

 

 

Poem and drawing by Alicia Hayden, Rain before Rainbows 2020

I am an award-winning poet and artist from North Yorkshire, with a degree in Biology from Oxford University, and a love of wildlife and the natural world.

I think it is important to use creative writing and the arts to showcase the beauty of nature, and why we need to protect it; and this inspired me to create and self-publish my first, illustrated wildlife poetry book “Rain before Rainbows” in 2020, of which 50% of profits go to the wildlife hospital Tiggywinkles.

My poem “Leopard” won WWF’s My True Nature under 18s poetry competition in 2011, and my poem “Vulnerable to Extinction” won Prickles & Paws’ poetry competition of the same name in 2021. I was awarded the inaugural Ingrid Beazley Award for winning the Human Impact category in David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation’s Wildlife Artist of the Year 2021, for my piece “When the Whale Sang”, which accompanies my poem “The Whale’s Song”.

 

Website: https://aliciahaydenwildlifephotography.zenfolio.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciahaydenwildlife/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aliciahaydenwildlife

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNn7n53grSoMi7cK68_58JQ

Ko-Fi (buy me a coffee): https://ko-fi.com/aliciahayden

 

Link/s to book sales:

Shop: https://aliciahaydenshop.bigcartel.com/

Books are also available to buy through The Little Ripon Bookshop, Ripon (UK): https://www.littleriponbookshop.co.uk/