Brown foam nearly covered the bird
washed up during the storm. Out here
walking the dogs in that light that hangs
in the air between squalls, we’d left
our field guides on the table at home.
A grebe, perhaps, surf had battered
its black and white feathers ragged.
One red eye followed us as we stood over it
and asked each other what to do
as the dogs whined and strained
at the ends of their leashes beside us.

I want to say we took it in our hands,
washed the sand from its wounded wing,
carried it in my coat to our rented cabin,
dried its feathers by a fire, and watched it heal,
paddling back and forth in the bear-claw tub.
I want to tell you it grew strong from herring
we bought for it from the market up the street.

But I thought of the landlord, the barking dogs,
the smell of an injured wild animal –
and really, what could we do for a broken bird
in just the days we had left here at the beach?
Let’s go, I said, and we walked on.
Hours later, we passed that place again.
The tide was out and the bird was gone.

Where the swale widens to the beach
and dune grass gives way to open sand,
my dogs have exhumed the body
of a harbor seal. Mummified
by wind, black-spotted fur flakes
off skin stretched over brown bones.

I find the pelvis, a femur, and four ribs.
Vertebrae bloom like flowers
on the damp sand. Each in its place,
I lay all that I’ve gathered:
Phalanges still connected by ligaments,
tibia and fibula together, scapula above,
ribs in rows down the spine.

With a driftwood spade, I set to work.
The odor of death blends with the scent
of kelp on the wind, with smoke
from a fire farther up the beach,
with the calls of gulls who hang
suspended in the air. A barrow rises
over the bones, ringed with stones
rolled smooth in the surf. Above,
clouds soar to the curving edge of the earth.

September 12, 2001

The day after, we drive the dogs to the park,
still unsure about the place of happiness
in our new world, but weary of predicting
where our bombs will fall first, sick of watching it
happen over and over on every channel.
The dogs break the silence in an empty field
just beginning to green from September rain.
The evening sky is clear of contrails, a gull
the only wings aloft over the lake. I hate
myself for thinking this is beautiful.

When I feel the rain fall again, I’ll know
to begin this ten-fingered dance.

Its ragged edges and rough sounds
catch the water and collect its story —

from sky to peak, through wood and moss,
off asphalt, boulders, steel. I’ll hear the patter

of rain on the earth above, crawl forth
and speak of the small things I see.

Mud and leaves, wet stones, moist bark.
I’ve waited too long. Now my work begins.