Sea Turtle, Part VIII

VIII

What about the earth?
What about the reef
and the plastic?
Octy? My new friends?
What about the rest of the world?

It does not matter how the universe ends,
only that it does, because
it cannot be fully alive again
until it fully dies. But,
if it makes you feel better,
you can find a way to make the
suffering of those around you less.

We spend a lot more time in the
in-between, I mused.
Yes, she growled.
Her liquid eyes were yellow with age
and her suckers although soft, were
broken and scarred.

Why do we fight and kill? Why do
some kill to eat?

Ah, the squid shook her head.
These are properties of life and
beginning again.
Some choose this, others do not.
Some go easily without questioning.
Others, like you, go with difficulty.
But it does not matter.
It is all the same in the end.

To us, the universe is a never ending place
of beauty and order, chaos and wonder.
In truth, it is also sentient and aware.

Through us, the universe notices
something so insignificant as the
transfer of a grain of sand from
the shore to the sea bed, just as we
notice it, however unwittingly it occurs.

Perhaps it travels with a friend, or
a flower, or
with a blade of seagrass ...
and yet,
and yet,
and yet, we come upon it ultimately
in our bed
in a fold of skin.

There is as much life in that grain
of sand as on our planet,
and yet ....
to the universe our planet
in its solar system with its 8 sister planets,
all their moons and stars,
and its sun,
is as a grain of sand.

I leave to you to find how to measure
your life and how to live with those
around you.

And with that, the squid gathered me
up with a growl and a snap of
her beak and gently, as in a spell,
she flung me back to the place
from which I came.