Archaeopteryx, an Elegy

As soon as possible, I will confront the wren’s doings, rinse the white streaks from the porch bricks drawing lizards from their shade, the immediate smell of water too much for all of us. But first is lunch. The remains we’ll scatter over the driveway away from the bricks. Wrens come, crusts from our dishes make drama. Then history. What is possible in memory is disingenuous. Limestone, impressed with the archaic smile of bone and reptilian wrists, wishbones and feathers, describes. It cups the transitional form, naturally selecting one’s best side. There was the time you forgot your legs no longer could recall how to stand—then rose up straight and sang You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me Probably I’ve been thinking of that since August. The indelible wrens grate like shovels outside—exhumed, one voice rises from wilderness, echoes, settles, rests —then another, and, between them, the keep of an unerring quiet.