what is the point of haste
�����������������������������������in a place that
�����still shudders as it shrugs
�����its shoulders of the weight
�����of the last Ice Age glacier?

yet I could disappear so quickly
leaving vapor trails
������������������������������������shifted red
through boundless sea foam and fog

I�d be happier alone, you said
and briefly I considered my reply
�����but the green
����������tendrils of vines
���������������from Silurian shores
����������wrapped my thoughts
and answering was too much trouble

yet I do like people and their leavings
his coy mistress�����her wrinkles in time
my children�s crayoned drawings
�����of band-aid lions,
�����those ferocious yellow weeds
his smudges turning cathedral with distance
their foot-stomping banjo breakdowns

����������all of them, shiny beetles
����������I�ve collected� � � � and stuck
����������through with pins under glass
����������to save for quiet afternoons

I am mute, is all
��������������������������in the face of so much time
in quasars from its inception tapped by Hubble
or in the wedge of prehistoric ocean floor
�����I found along the railroad track