Stringing the Crinoids
Is no small job: they haven’t been lined up since time
Turned from biochemical back to earth: Paleozoic, the
Old-life time; Carboniferous; then by place.
Missouri’s state fossil, revealed by the Mississippi,
They were alive in an inland sea, Kentucky under waves.
Trilobites died out, but crinoids grew:
Anchor-free feather stars, scooting across the
Sea floor at high speeds, or conservative families fixed
To rocks in shallows. Three hundred million years ago,
Like lotus, they stretched in water, giraffelike pre-
Raphaelite animals; least well known
Of star-form echinoderms,
spinyskins:
bone:
now stone.
So I have a boxful
Of Indian beads, though who knows if the Cherokees
Wore them? I always did, scrabbling them up
Out of shoreside mud at Red River Gorge or Kentucky Lake:
Ochre, burnt ochre, sienna, small as washers, rough as bark.
Strung on a ribbon or piece of gold elastic for a while,
Carried away from home when I went from home.
Where did I store such stuff between now and then?
Years recalled by neurons lending shape to what we lost—
The closet, its mirror, hallway, boxes
Underneath the bed? Did I even have a sewing table?
“These are my crinoids,” strung with hand-faceted
Champagne-colored crystals, huge pearl buttons, pre-ban
Ivory spheres, rusty cut-steel Victorian filigrees,
A single earring: one-inch round, pale blue acrylic moonstone
From the A-train floor.
No end of finding stuff, making stuff, storing stuff,
Giving stuff away. And you want to say, “Skeleton, stay,”
Since hydro-electrical-chemical-magical-animate goes away.
No denying it goes away, but it’s hard to believe.
This is my backbone, flexing as I swim.
