Tiny Baby Turtle Dead

Hiking a day of discoveries
There were age old tracks
Flanked by pastures of wild willy-nilly trees and shrubs
And farms of orderly pines leading us to frog talk
A regular confabulation of frog talk.

There were age old trails
Sloping up to the sky leading hearts upward toward hope and spring
Forking north and right
Beckoning: take me, take me, now.

There were miles of leaves underfoot
Creating and concealing the muddy, squishy path
Layers lessening and making way for sand and moss.
To revealing traces of winter survival.

There is a hole dug in the sand; a ravaged little pit
Surrounded by broken shriveled egg shells.
And a tiny baby turtle dead remains--
Telling the tale of its little tragedy.

She takes up the dirty little thing
Still fragile in death
But a bit of a thing perfect in many ways;
Promise at an end; future denied.

It seems important to cherish it
Care for it in death as it deserved in life.
Perhaps she should have passed by the turtle,
Evidence of the violent ebb and flow of living and not living
Perhaps she has not let go of other dead things.

But the day of discoveries was a trek upward and happy.
Perhaps the turtle is in is proper place within the day.