poem
Volume 30, Number 3

Astonishing

It is astonishing how fast fog can burn off,
how even this low-down, sleepy morning
can rip the band-aid off yesterday and

wake it up. Yesterday, a scientist on the radio
said our sky was pink before the moon got
smashed off from the Earth, which changed

everything. He said once it rained for a
million years and when a caller asked if
that was what filled the oceans, he said yes.

All of this happened longer ago than I can
tell, but it must be true. Listening to him,
I felt that truth, surely as if I’d been there

to see. I understand this is the wrong way
to understand science. Doing so makes
it the same as love. Despite today’s bright,

blue-eyed noon, I wrap a cape around my
shoulders on this lost beach, tuning in a
thousand thousand years, the rise of that surf.


—Christine Potter