Arms clutching a city, sheltering it from the wide open ocean, Deer island on the north, the peninsula of Hull on the south, a crab, a protective fatherly motherly crab encircling a troubled people.

Why troubled?

Global temperature is rising, ice caps are melting, ocean basins are filling, the ocean level is rising, the city could be inundated. First to go: the sweet arms of Boston Harbor.

They’ve lived a short life, this crab, only since the retreat of the glaciers, a mere 15,000 years ago. And we humans who live here? How much longer do we survive as a species?

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

(last line from Dylan Thomas)

Photos: Deer Island • Georges Island • Lovells Island • Grape Island