SEA TURTLES watercolour

SAND...SEA...SHELL

POETRY IN MOTION

TURTLE POETRY

http://www.chelonian.org/turtle-poetry/

Chelonian Conservation and Biology, 2001, 4(1):231

Playa Grande Beach

MICHAEL H.J. RHODIN

As though the weight of a thousand generations
had been laid across its back,
the black form rose between the waves,
pulling itself onto midnight sand.

In the absence of light
the Costa Rican heavens fell upon the shore,
illuminating the leatherback sea turtle
in her quest up the beach.

The ancient creature turned, eyes to her home,
and with laborious, alternating strokes,
dug her back flippers into the ground, cupping the sand,
and hurling it in a shower to either side.

Then, 3 feet later, the digging stopped    and I
crawled forward, sand clinging to my palms and knees,
a wet,    spherical    egg dropped
into the womb of the earth.

I watched as every chance at life
was given up to the earth by the mother;
88 chances for their race to survive.
88 prayers in the face of extinction.

Nest completed,
I touched her soft shell
as she crawled back to the ocean
her path ingrained in my mind.