The Burgess Shale

When Walcott found the Burgess Shale

in 1909, high above the town of Field,

he could not account for how the

humble trilobyte had swum so high,

probing antennae pushed into the

face of God. Only to appear 500 million

years later, like passengers

beneath the hooves of Walcott’s horse,

baking under summer sun, a mile

above the primordial sea. Nothing

prepared Walcott for tectonic

plates that vaulted like dolphins

from the earth’s molten crust

up to the realm of snowy hawks.

So he told himself that a biblical

flood had swallowed the teeming

earth and left trilobytes washed

upon the lonely mountain scree.

And Walcott died a happy man.

I’m perched like Walcott tonight,

35,000 feet above the Rockies,

bouncing rudely off a nimbus cloud

like a man astride a pack horse.

When the turbulence sends us dancing

you grab my hand fiercely, I whisper

“It’s okay”. But honestly, I haven’t

a clue when we will touch down or

when trilobytes will surface next.