A Ghost Dance for the Turtles

I am haunted by the ghost turtles. The turtles I captured and confined when I was a kid. The turtles who refused to be pets and entertainers, teachers and scientific specimens. The turtles who refused to eat. The turtles who swam in circles banging hard carapaces against glass aquaria. The turtles who wanted to swim away freely to find their own mud. The turtles who died in my bedroom through my boredom and neglect.

I search for the Ghost Dance that will bring them back. Sometimes they swim freely through my dreams. They forgive me when I cannot forgive myself. They murmur, “This is life. Hold onto it. Swim in your swamp. Thrive in your mud. Do not let it go.”

About the Image: Robert Duncanson painted “Blue Hole, Little Miami” in 1851. Today it hangs in the Cincinnati Art Museum. A hundred and fifty years after he painted the luminist scene in Clifton Gorge, I stood in the same spot and saw a soft-shelled turtle sunning on a snag. It slipped silently into the water when it heard me. That’s when I knew past is present and destiny, too. That’s when my vision of the Ghost Turtles began.