Fossil

We walked in that green field

Between the golden bell

Of Sunday morning and

The golden clover smell.

Beneath resisting grass,

Being too tired to climb, \

We found in rotten rock

The fossil lost in time,

Stood staring till I found

Power and sense to shove

Inside my coat dead stone

And your live hand of love.

There we were beaten with -

Bronze minutes from the bell

That battered our delight

And bronzed the clover smell.

One hour rock, clover watched

Our deliberate climb

Into eternity

Loudly tongued with time.

Out of green water came

The shell that we could shove

Into the glittering light

That was our wave of love

In which I felt your pulse

Beating, red rung bell,

And heard the quiet boom

Of the red clover smell,

And felt along my hand

That shell whose silent climb

From dark seas into light

Shrieked the cruel cry of time

Accusing us of pride

That we in hope could shove

Up from its salty depth

The muscle of our love.

Stroke by brazen stroke

We answered that pure bell,

As red bloom by red bloom

Clover clanged its smell,

We learned from that dead life,

Shell of old shell: we climb

The living earth to learn

That as we fall through time,

Geologist of joy,

Defining day, will shove,

Layer on layered hour,

Our lapidary love,