The Hard Lines of Our Bodies

poetry by J. BRUCE FULLER

This land was once water
and will be again.

The river took from the sea,
it coughed up mud
and silt and the bones
of forest and beast,
and built the land with them.

The great lizards of the Mesozoic
found this place and never left,
their bellies cut deep tracks in new earth
and we followed them here.
We too find it hard to move on.

Wherever the mud touches
is new, but borrowed.
The sea will not forget.

Here, under slouching oaks, I see
a lizard, now brown, now green,
empty belly close to the ground.
What does he know
that I have forgotten?

It is in the hard line of his body,
his dash and search.

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about j. bruce fuller | process statement

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