Shore Story
microscopic multiplying,
great shapes nudging towards becoming.
something down there.
pond scum rippling,
green waves lap my feet.
then at once the pond explodes,
in fountains spiral up,
an agony of peptides.
geyser spinning, spinning,
folding in upon itself.
and the sound washes over me.
fifty thousand cycles:
sunning Hell days dusty rocks,
albumen sucked from shattered eggs,
flapping panicked wings…
a smear of blood on the savannah.
biology, the manic squawking
over wave-assaulted rocks
compounded, trilobyte, exertion,
rainfall stirs the smell of ferns.
and organism slithers onto throne.
from shore I see it rolling on
towards completion of a sort,
which I will never know —
except as cells
know the mysteries of music,
the sadness beneath the laughter.