untitled

what could have thrown this lakebed two miles into the air?
to where the weather and clouds roll on their bellies,
scuffing their cheeks and hair over the tousled grasses.
what else but the years. what else but the centuries.

coarse alpine prairie, sheep-eaten. dark dusty soils, mole-guttered.

when the glaciers and snowfields recede there are kneecaps,
kneecaps everywhere, all kinds, strewn about, piled into drifts.
like from an antediluvian battle, like from the hosts of Atlantis,
from whales, from angels who flew too low or too high and later washed ashore.

all kneecaps. each one marbled and laced with its own tiny bones and shells.

for so long the whales held onto their kneecaps;
kept them around for millions of years, just in case, so patient.
when the waters come again, we’ll stand on the shore
and skip them back in like the stones they are.