Headline (Poetry)

It was all there — clues in the heaving clouds
the wind’s fretful mutterings
while in the bushes spiders strung
half words together —
webbed messages intuition glued
in busy lines
and then the rain drumming on the rocks
repeating it like gossip
but still it made no sense.

The waves were high as headlines
black with breaking news
their story cold with agony —
the great whale high on the shingle
had beached itself in protest
a harpoon jutting
unnecessary as an exclamation mark.