fish in shale

oh you beauty
where did you come from
out of what night
into a day
of what deep drift
and measureless being
that has no ending
that we can say

poetry, set
a word in amber
next to a drifter
on the tide
with little enough
to say, it lodges
as chance may have it
up beside

the greatest poem
of Earth. You beauty
frozen in shale
so long ago
in your silence
the volumes you speak
say more than the stars
Oh who would know,

who could have told
the turn of events?
that darting impulse
it has not gone
far back I see you
gainfully swimming –
quick little traveller
swim on, swim on