Here once dwelt a living creature, a bivalve mollusk of not a little complexity, filtering the ocean sands for plankton and other bits of food. Now its dwelling is adrift, an empty shell, cast upon the beach for us to ponder...
This living mollusk, the lettered olive, found itself high and dry as the tide receded. A gastropod, it may burrow beneath the sand and wait for the passage out with the next tide, or it may become a meal for a hungry forager scouring the shoreline for sustenance, or perhaps Hunter will gently restore it to safety in the nearby shallows.
A beachcombers delight, the sand dollar. Or more aptly, here on the mid-Atlantic coast, a keyhole urchin. Again, we see but the empty shell of a once vibrant life, lived in its entirety a few dozen feet from these shores, but in another universe entirely. Oh, to drift freely for a while in those near-shore depths, the much greater to appreciate the mystery of these remnants tossed so carelessly about in the foam!
Instead, we gaze from the margin, hesitating on the brink, relying on our imagination to fill in the blanks, gleaning the occasional "Howdy, neighbor!" from the detritus on the sand, and gazing out at the sun-dappled surface where the mystery abides...
