The Edge

Before Life
supercontinents
floated
on a crust
of molten lava.

I skirt
a marsh
opening
to spring.

Two otters
snake
the dark waters
in the morning sun.

A merganser
fluffs
his great white hood
wags his wings
and walks on water
while a female,
unimpressed,
continues pulling
at the cattails.

There is no
common language
not even between lovers.

Geese honking
open up the sky
to imbedded thunderstorms
that change the winds
while ice melts
like glaciers
calving into
chocolate waters
to be surfed
by madmen
with a brushfire
of words
unleashed by
continents colliding
450 million years ago
in the crosscuts of I-90
they leave their marks.

We all want to be known
as we leave ourselves
in stone
in bones
in ashes
turned to Earth
a barred owl calls.