Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Australopithecus

A man bends
over the earth, a question.

He is drawn toward
a dust-colored stone

where the rain washes
into an African lake.

Cradled in his palm, the curve
is right, like an orbit

or light bending
around a sun, a skull fragment.

His palm matters
now, the whorls

and dried streams that grip
the land, this convex shard

of bone. His heart crushes
his ears like drums,

stone to stone. The horizon
is eye level in every direction,

an endless being
to walk toward.


by Chet Gresham

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