Remnants

The glacier melted that year and it flooded

and made lakes in the lower fields. Channels

of water gravitated there: like veins

returning to heart— repeating, essential. 

In the middle of this erosion, tiny worlds 

opened up: The outline 

of spiraled, unfurled ferns

burrows made by worms,

a cylinder of curved horn coral,

hard lines of trilobites.

In every life: a small stillness, a prayer,

an unfinished grief. This is how I cling 

to reason: as if I could swim deep enough 

to collect the remnants of your form, cast molds 

in your image and preserve them – as if,

for a heartbeat, that stillness could breathe.