Not Mattering to the Earth

On the day that we die,
          crayfish do or don't return
to their torpor, claws idled in the sand,
          bees dozing in the tattered rose or not.

Where frogs stop
          their perpetual wakefulness
on pond, bog, swamp,
          we may float in the scent of lilies and moss.

And in the sea whose sharks begin,
          at last, to drowse under shadowy reefs,
only to rise again,
          numbed by the cold,

we will join the anglerfish,
          waving long filaments of dreams
that brush past our eyes, heavy
          with inconsequence.

Copyright © 2007 Colette Inez All rights reserved
from the Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission