There was once a lonely whale, and they'd never hear her wail. Not that she doesn't, in this tale, her despair so deep, and them so frail... They think she's dumb, or worse, numb. She thinks they're deaf, or worse, they left. She sings in sorrow, with none to hear, a solitude so thorough, year after year. She'd weep, hoping for resonance, She'd sleep, moping in dissonance. Her kind nowhere around, their kindness nowhere to be found. She cries at 52Hz. She's 52 now and it hurts. CONTEXT TO THE POEM: The Loneliest Whale in the World. In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem: She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.
