Long held
Estimates
Suggest
Our star,
In main
sequence,
Will burn
For another
Five billion
Years.
And at that time,
A roiling
Ember,
Swollen from
Firesworn
Devouring
Of elements
It will
Embrace
The last trace
Of us,
The dust that
Knit the lattice
Of our form,
And welcome
Us home.
ancient
Aggregate
Moss covered stone
Sun beckoned
The snow runs off,
Stays in shadow.
Petrichor and
Woodsmoke.
Its said to
Follow beauty,
But forgets.
Swift water flows,
Slows at the bend
In the middle frozen
Hand outstretched
Hard pack and
Hardpan
Veins of quartz
Veins of clay
Dust and ash
Pockmarked with
Grinding rock
Laden and vacant
A thousand years.
Shot rock
In granite
In agate
In aggregate.
Pine needles
In a panic.
Wind summoned.
The sun sets
And fills pockets
Valleys
Inlets
Seethes against
Mountainside.
Long strides
And echo
Against cliff face.
Falling and fallen
Pebbles and ember.
Oxygen fed and
Carbon starved
Stars burn and
Scatter
Then
Burrow
Nestle
Soften the
Darkness.
Empty and desolate is the sea.
I buried you
In the marrow
Of my bones.
I carry you
In this wreckage.
This derelict
Body full of
Curses and portents,
Salted wounds and
Blood in the water,
Tall ships on
Strange shores.
Satellites in
Perpetual free fall
Following stars
Named for
Blasphemed
Gods,
All their supplicants
And temples
Long since consumed
By fire
Or by moorland
Drowned
And exhumed
A cuneiform adorned
Tomb
-MJG 2021
Tracks and Traces
Have you ever heard of the Shigir Idol? It’s a 17 foot wooden statue that has been carbon dated to about 12,000 years old. Roughly at the end of the last ice age. Its named for the peat bog it was found in, on the eastern slope of the Middle Ural mountains near Yekaterinburg. It’s a striking sculpture, featuring several human faces and geometric lines and shapes. After being microscopically studied, it was discovered that the Shigir Idol’s features and designs were carved with half a beaver jaw with teeth still intact.
Since reading about the Shigir idol, I’ve been running my fingers over the grooves in my mind. Over and over again, tracing the carefully carved lines, feeling the smooth wood, stopping at every angle and turn. A prayer of sorts. A map leading backward. Veins. Beckoning mountain ranges and lakes and forests. An unimpeded night sky full of constellations. I wonder if it was meant for that. I wonder if, 12,000 years ago, the people responsible for creating it could fathom my doing so? I think they did. I think they meant for us to. It feels arrogant to make assumptions. Almost sacriledge.
The face at the “head” of the idol is placid, peaceful and seems to be singing. or breathing into the cold air. Or pleading. Or any number of things. But it is undeniably human.
I think about 12,000 years in the bog. The murky dark cast about with scattered sunlight only occasionally. The moss and the rock. The sediment. The sediment that drowned and preserved it. An ancient lake gasping. A toppled giant forever asleep. Why are tears so close when I do so? Why am I so moved? Why is it so easy to feel the weight of the clay and the water?
I feel a sort of kinship with both the Shigir Idol and the artists who created it. An eternal reaching forward. Toothed beaver jaw, warm wood, calloused hands. Shaped and molded, tracks and traces, whispered truths and prayers. Nightmares and daydreams. Falling. Sinking. Turning to stone unseen. 12,000 years undreaming. Hieroglyph after hieroglyph. Surfacing in pieces. Messages and lessons in the lesions.
Michelle Joy Gallagher Soffe 