Footloose,
Untethered,
Stolen.

Or if you believe such things,
Simply slipping through
Invisible portals,
Vanishing without warning.

Worn out steps of dancing feet.
Previously confident ,
Across the path of practice,
Passages of musical time
Indefinitely suspended.

Once loved evidence of  
Masterful pointes and whirling pirouettes,
Retired by inevitable exhaustion.

Hiding in plain sight,
Consumed by the greengrass cloak
Of enigmatic loss,
This mystery of misplacement
Happens to us all.

Like the consequence of stolen moments,
Disrupting the order of things,
It produces a void,
And a haunted memory of things
That can never be replaced.

Saturday
on the southern side of the island,  
just past Leviathan Cottage, 
a dead minke whale washed ashore. 

Word traveled fast;
a steady stream of locals
stopping to gaze,
a sense of awe
permeating the landscape
of seagrass and rocks.

The shape and size,  
contours and textures
of the corpse, 
its briny scent 
not yet replaced by decomposition, 
and especially 
the grand stillness 
of this once living creature, 
emanates a peaceful spirit.

Beached in the bardo state
before body parts disconnect
and dignity surrenders to putrefaction,
there remains
in this plangent reverence
a reminder of what awaits us all,
and the hope
that we too
have lived in grace.