Deaths at Sea


Salishan Beach: Dead of Winter
Richard Beban


Sleek, svelte, maybe four hundred pounds gross weight,
this teardrop-shaped seal lying parallel
to obsidian, white-crested waves, creates

a hillock on the winter shore. Expelled
by the chilly sea, she’s been left to rest
at the scrimshawed high-water mark, propelled,

then beached by the deserting tide. Blessed
with soft, flawless fur marbled black & gray,
like ink-swirled paper etched with the finest

calligraphy — she’s as lovely today
as Circe or the mermaids myth-spawned from
sailors’ wind-dark dreams. In death, she displays

more grace than I can exhibit in dumb-
struck life. Why this sweet young beast? I wonder,
then remember one death’s nothing here. Some

perfectly natural cause has sundered
her life thread. At the edge, only profuse
death prompts official inquiry. Under-

takers gather — six black-beaked gulls who roost
casually on a log. They’ve begun
by excising her eye. Clearly they’re used

to this: not at all shaken or undone
by delicate lashes framing oblivion.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Beban lives in Playa del Rey, California. Before he turned to poetry in 1993, he had been a journalist, PR person for non-profits and cause-related organizations, movie publicist, radio public service director and newsman, and a television and film writer. He still works for non-profit environmental organizations, helping them get their messages out into an overcrowded "marketplace of ideas." His poetry has appeared in numerous chapbooks, anthologies, journals, magazines, a CD, and two full-length books of poetry, both published by Red Hen Press: What the Heart Weighs (2004) and Young Girl Eating a Bird (2006), from which this poem is reprinted. For more on Richard and his work, go to http://web.mac.com/r.w.b/iWeb/Site/Playa_Poets_Home.html