Death washes upon the beach daily – mostly birds: cormorants, pelicans, grebes, gulls, and lately, seals. The sea sweeps their broken, swollen bodies onto the shore. The breaking waves offer them up, then roll them back and forth as if deciding whether to hold on or let go, much as we grasp what’s left of our lost loved ones – anything, good, bad, indifferent. This belonged to him. She gave this to me. We fought over this. Eventually the tide recedes beaching the carcasses of shell and meat. Reality sets in.

Somehow the carcasses are removed. To where, it doesn’t really matter. Their life essence is elsewhere. Their death seems complete. Natural. Simple. Or is there a mate, child, parent or sibling out at sea mourning? A cormorant resting upon the rocks with grief inflating its breast, bursting from the heart outwards. A pelican diving to hide its tears. A grebe floating lost in memory. A gull wallowing in a depression it doesn’t even realize is there. A seal howling its sorrow into the wind.