Lost

It might have been a harbor seal,
the baby seal no more than 3 feet long
with its wide eyes and plaintive mouth,
its head wider than its body,
but this place where it rested on a marshy flat of Ninigret Pond
with water only four inches deep
was no harbor.
Separated from its mother, the herd,
totally alone,
it didn’t know where to go.
It should have been in Antarctica by now,
eating snow melt for water.
Instead the white sand it ate, mistaking it for snow,
sat in its stomach making it sick,
weighing it down.
It lay still in the water,
its eyes closed, its nostrils shut,
as if under 40 feet rather than 4 inches of water.
From the crowd of people who had gathered to watch it,
one went forward and reported it to the DEM warden.
The warden claimed there was nothing he could do since
the baby seal was ‘outside of the area’ where he could retrieve it.
The crowd complained about the warden.
A mother said the seal should be kept wet and
her child splashed it with water, startling it.
My family watched and wondered whether the lack of movement
signified a lack of will to live.
My daughter felt its loneliness.
My wife couldn’t fathom how no one helped the seal.
I wondered when the day would come when, finally,
humanity would see itself
as Shepherd to all the creatures
of earth and sea.
After a while we left and another family came,
no doubt thinking the same thoughts as we.