He cut agatized pinecones and snailshells,Both from the Eocene, dawn of fauna.His accent was somewhere betweenThe Black Forest and Michigan, as ifThe world had folded at his latitude.Open, the pinecones were a resinousBrown—like amber, also from that era—With swishing long lashes about to blink.Hmmmm, we said, watching him workSo slowly, reproaching himself wheneverOne chipped. We felt on the vergeOf solving it. If we could bring a freshPair—I mean a real one—of eyesTo this, we could finally pin it down.Do ideas, in channels, move in or out?We are changing, I think we areChanging. Twilight flora and fauna,We are crouching in fir forests,With backs up like the mountains,We are deeply breathing the fernContinent that will restore the earthTo itself. It looks just like the ripplesIn rocks, Alex observed at the beach,And I had always thought the same.Were agates maybe … alive,I ventured. Slice into the mind and findPatterns; I had a horn coral onceWith the alphabet outside. WithinThe gastropods were the mostMarvelous mauve velvet chambersWhere the organism sleeps a millionYears in luxury. With a satin maskOn and marabou mules. Not fishOr flesh or good red fowl. Andrewsarchus,From the Eocene, looking like a dogThat missed. We are changing,I believe we’re between. Those ridgesWhere the earth’s hackles are raised,Something approaches, somethingIs coming, near deer or that thingLike a coyote I saw in Kansas,A scrap of patchy hide and glue.No one would look at it and sayIt had been overloved, but it had.Loved in sleep and loved in wakingBy the day, who drags it reluctantUpstairs, bumping it at every step.The sky is still so white. Not yet.