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56 Ut Pictura Poesis: At first they are alarming, yes, the humps of slick mammal on the shore, since so many beached creatures recall the mascara’d paintbrush of oil spills—but elephant seals are only sleeping and nursing now on clean Pacific shores: with checkerboardcorrugated sunlit throats, the twitch and proto-murmur of a flipper treading wind. If you visit the beach from the vantage of the cliffs above, the seal arcs telescope to stain the sand and camouflage with rock. Distance licks the slicks away. And then you’ll see them only in the sirens of their cries. ...

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