Prayer for the Missing

turtle hatchlings

multiply in thousands;

they lie beneath damp sand

until the siren moon lights

their exodus to the shore.

Seagulls fly low in flocks,

crabs puncture the seaweed

with their sideways walk.

They wait.

It has never been

Nature’s intention

that every seed bear fruit--

there have always been

crabs and birds.

In another era, women died

of fever beside newborns

on blood soaked sheets,

children died of malnutrition

at the back of boarding houses.

Even now death haunts

antiseptic halls and sterile 

birthing rooms;

Why do I forget this?

I might have lost you

while very young--

and yet, to me you are always

the fierce hatchlings in a thousand

who live thirty terrapin years.

You swim in the brackish shallows

with hawksbill and leatherback,

diving for waving seagrass,

basking on drifting logs, 

and flying through waves

with long thrusts

of flippers.