Spiral galaxies spin a linear
clock in time re-wound
repeated in diminishing patterns
to infinity and beyond
Exhibiting art before we etched our lives in caves,
and before the mudflats of unknown times
where the dumb landscape
bore witness
Your glossy shell
keeps lip-wet and lacquer-fresh,
flaunting the helix of aeons
and tells glittering genetic histories
despite the muddy miasma
of goo beyond your own silver spit
Shining
under a thousand suns and more
perhaps making a bubble
for a comparative few seconds -
it holds no clues
to what you’ve witnessed
Meanings and symbols and constructs
of the never mind, never matter, nether edge
crumble through time’s workshop
etched in conservator’s blues
and ochres
Lime-quick and tarred
flint-struck and Star-Carred
Lost on the moors
where once burning sedge smelled like a rainy stubble-burn
and snails fried
Earphone, chariot of the sun
triskele whorl
Nazca carpet trailer
Song of the Thrush
ram's horn
conch-call
slower than us but with less time…
snail
***