54.

Flint, outcrop, overhang: I made my way

Over the stone outlay thrust up

Before there were eyes to see. Lyell

And Darwin wrote odes to geology

And the love of birds and archipelago

Before I was born or knew who they were.

I was a child who ran along the shore

Of a glacial lake, climbed through the forest

On some of the most ancient and worn hills

In the world. When I left that land of flies

And bugs that burst in the sudden summer,

I lost my way in a labyrinth of rules.

Sand was not textual for me then, and now

I look back, for love, through shards and measures.