Video

Even with death so close,
life must go on. Especially so.
We sit by you —
wife, daughter, son
who made up
your utterly private universe,
your solace — though families
are never pure solace.
Together we watch Turtle Diary,
follow the unromantic plot
to where the turtles
enter an unknown sea,
great bodies that can express
no trace of feeling or memory,
can only trundle towards
the tide edge, lift into lightness,
be absorbed by the amniotic fluid
that swathes the world.
After, reassured by that image,
you lapse back into solitude,
resting, dreaming.