Blinks and Turns

Single cells to shiny scales,
swimming and slithering
in primordial muck
to crawl upon a shell-strewn beach,
to lap from tidal pools.

Each change, a yearning;
each season, a turning,
creating new from what is there—
stardust leafing light to air

we breathe,
time blinks–
an ice age comes, time winks,
the frozen is undone,
lost currents become storm-churned sea,
swirling turbulence shatters dreams–

soon, a thousand Atlantises
sink beneath the ocean’s blue,
fins glide through girders
of sunken skyscrapers still pointing
like steel fingers
from beneath waves to fickle sky.

For Paul Brookes’ Poetry Month Ekphrastic Challenge. You can see the art and read the other poems here.