Discernment

………………….

if thoughts became fossils
they might one day be found by neuro-paleontologists
buried among other earth-bones in strata of notions
like carcasses of trilobites in stone,
the ghosts of pointing fingers in basalt
caught in snapshots  —but they are not

thought comes and goes as fireflies flicker,
tentative, alive, windblown over folds of flesh in throats,
taken by breeze to ears, sometimes expressed
as echoes articulated by other tongues and lips
until they echo less and fade like smoke of flash fires
in wilderness; though some are as vital as music, or
as rapacious as plague.

by Jim Culleny
Oct 12, 2010 rev:3/29/23