These are just a few of the horseshoe crabs that were on the beach the other morning-- dead.

The first time  I saw a horseshoe crab I must have been about 7. It was in the water, I thought it was a rock until I stepped on it, and it moved.  We never saw them washed up like this. It's not a molt-- not a new moon,  and there weren't cracks on the front of the shells  (where the crab would have crawled out). They died. I don't know if this is because of the oil spill, or simply the storm the other night, or the water being too hot, or everything changing all at once, all together.

They made me think of dead Greek warriors,  and Sutton Hoo helmets:




I remember one summer here, I must have been around 6 or 7, my father began reading the Odyssey to me. Perhaps he was inspired by the horseshoe crabs.
Maybe if J had been older we might have play-fought with these, then, like those heroes of old. Instead I "drew" a "jellyfish" in the sand around the "crab fishies" trying to explain to him what had happened to these old men of the sea, even though I  don't really know.