CURWOOD: Nature can be disquieting at times. That was the case when writer Mark Seth Lender visited Hudson Bay in Canada. There, whales sometimes strand themselves. But as Mark sees it, in nature, life and death are inseparable.

(SEAGULLS CALLING)

LENDER: Beluga Whale fetches up on the point, rides in the slosh of the riptide where the beach stones clash, Slip slide... slip slide... and the wind groans.

Gray Ghost of a White Whale, he was. Had he lived he would have turned white as a snow bear though now he never will. Gray is the only color he will ever know; gray as a cloud when the light goes.

Perhaps he tangled and drowned pulled down by net or anchor line. Perhaps he was trapped in the shallows on a sandbar and the day did the life out of him, burnt offering to the sun. Or maybe he swallowed something that harmed him. For there are no wounds. Not a mark. No violence defiled him. The mystery dies inside him.

And the tide rolls out; and the wind subsides; and the end of the end arrives.

CURWOOD: Mark Seth Lender is the author of Salt Marsh Diary - A Year on the Connecticut Coast. To hear a short interview with Mark about his experience and see some photos, go to our website LOE dot org.