Collection

A few stones at a time
my son brings home the mountain.

Self Portrait as Noble Pen Shell

Patience. Neptune grass grows at the rate
of three cm per year. Blooms. Shelters
moray eels; seahorses; the larvae
of pinna nobilis, which, rooted,
mature, achieve a height above four feet.
Even the mixed fescue out your window
beneath the unexpected cover of
mid-April snow is growing, now, somehow,
if not fresh shoots then roots, gathering strength.
Is that something you lack? All right; you lack it.
You lack also an aragonite shell
to fend off predators; you fail, repeatedly,
to feed yourself on light. If only time
were passing at the rate of one second
per second. If you only slept,
occasionally, all night. If only
you’d scooped, this morning, paired handfuls of snow,
and found six intact violets, waiting—
tomorrow, next day at the latest—for
the bees.