Never want for wonder

A crab is stalking around the tank, pincers raised, ready for action. He sees me nearby and threatens me, but when I touch the glass at his face, he looks at my fingertip for a moment, then realizes it's bigger than his pincers. And off he scuttles, to hide under a clamshell.

Laurie would have laughed.

But he's gone. He died Saturday night. He won't laugh at my critters, nor watch his garden bloom. He won't be bringing me spiders in pill bottles. He won't be taking more photos of Mount Baker across the water, or peering into tidepools, or leading parades of hungry mallards at Reifel Island. Or rousting me out of my morning doldrums to "go a-jaunting."

Hey luv     let us go a-jaunting    o
        when the red-cheeked sun
in her walking-out attire
        rises laughing over the horizon
scooting by watchful hawk and eagle
        down to the jaunty seagull's hangout
rocky shore    sandy beach    weedy marge
        where tireless tide's urge to push and pull
from bygone sagacity rules
        poseidon's fishy realm and aphrodite's foamy origin
where awareness begat sentiency
yes    our home too: briny and ozone
        whose thriving presence invigorates
while we alert and observant    poke and peer
        thrilled    and often chilled    never want for wonder
for this is a force beholden to no-one
        and like love    provides and demands
generous and severe

(One of his poems, mmix)

Always looking onward. He didn't face the camera often.

And when he did, he was usually clowning.

I have been touched and comforted by the messages you have sent me, here, on Facebook, on Twitter, and in "meat space" with letters and hugs and a card shoved under my door tonight. Thank you all!

While Laurie was still with me, I passed on your messages to him. He didn't say much; he was beyond much talking, but he smiled.