A Little Ramble

About a Turtle, Stardust & the Nature of Existence

Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash

In a net bag hanging from a nail sit a handful of tiny bones drying in the summer heat. When imagining the bodies of turtles with their miraculous shells, we see perhaps separate bodies within, such as snails and other sea creatures that choose their homes for size and safety. But a turtle’s shell is its backbone, its spine and its roof. The bones in the net bag belong to a Blanding turtle whose ribs, sternum and spine fused to form their beautiful shell. It’s the tiny leg bones—fine fibula and tibia that are bleaching in the sun.

I’d like to write a poem about this turtle, the size of an artisanal loaf, but it makes me the kind of sad that reaches so deep it renders my poetry mute.

I rise and sag, deflate then sing. In this world where Monarchs are endangered and the bones of creatures forever gone cover the forest floor, I persist. Perhaps against all odds, as they say. I also plan, although plans have become transitory and easily erased with the tip of a finger.

I hang sheets on the line, check the sky for signs of smoke or rain, dust the counter with flour, add seeds and salt, and wait for the bread to rise. I stretch into various positions, adjusting to ease the cramping. More tulips next year? Maybe lupins, delphiniums. Tomatoes are abundant this year. Next spring I won’t plant so many.

Next year.

Because seeing is believing and bones weaken with age, I stay close to home and take fewer risks. Take this turtle, for instance—likely fifteen or twenty years old. Found on a rock in a lake far from any cars.

My son will make a rattle from its shell.

Maybe next year.

Photo by Jose Ruales on Unsplash

The point is vanishing—a pin dot, and then nothing. I stared at the horizon until the very thing I came to see disappeared. I look to the sky and see only how small I am. How before that star I have my finger on burns out, my body will be dust. They say we are all made of the same stuff, that nothing new exists; just reconfigurations of celestial seasonings. (Are we, therefore, also tea?) Which means the moon and I, Pluto and I belong to the same mother. (Was it Pluto or Uranus that got declassified as a planet? How rude, in any case. As if that far-flung orb gives a fuck what some guy in a lab coat and thick glasses calls it. )

We are so small; our egos and ideas, enormous. As if we matter. As if our thoughts: I am/you are/it is matter at all. And yet, here we are—hauling in the hay before the rain, plucking tender pea pods with tiny white flowers at their tips, chatting about weather, saying gosh, it’s cold/hot/wet as if the other hasn’t noticed, stuffing our underwear into washing machines in hopes the stains will wash out, lining up at Costco for gas five cents less a litre so we can get where we think we want to go…

And we write as if—what? Our words might entertain, alleviate, shock, delight, heal? Change anything at all? Is change what we want?

We write because we have to, I’ll admit, but neither Uranus nor Pluto gives one damn about our stories or poems. Forget about those colliding/exploding galaxies pictured by some billion-dollar camera hurtling through space. What we learn from these images is that we’re alone. No one like us out there; us greedy, gobbling, grovelling, puffed-up, bickering, hoping, emotional, cruel, kind, lonely, generous beings trying to make sense of it all when perhaps there’s no sense to be made.

Maybe next year.

Maybe delphiniums. Maybe a rattle. Maybe a trip to Spain. Maybe my bones bleaching in the sun.