Author: Mary Waterfield

The crab crawled up the sand
with a certain anguish.
I felt kinship with the little crustacean.
I knew he would not be going back,
into the salt and dark dreams of the sea.
He had come to die away from his home.
Was it to see where the light was?
That he had seen his whole existence?
And in his last anguish
longed to find.
I did not touch him or throw him back.
I left him, knowing the sea
would reach for him in its tide,
when the sun went down.