I found this jawbone at the sea's edge: <br />There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or tossed <br />To flap for half an hour and turn to a crust <br />Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold: <br />In that darkness camaraderie does not hold. <br /> <br />Nothing touches but, clutching, devours. And the jaws, <br />Before they are satisfied or their stretched purpose <br />Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws <br />Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach: <br />This is the sea's achievement; with shells, <br />Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls. <br /> <br />Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these <br />Indigestibles, the spars of purposes <br />That failed far from the surface. None grow rich <br />In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh <br />But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.<br /><br />Ted Hughes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/relic/
