wings for a snail

While waiting

for my wings to grow

and contemplating

the clotted sky, a broken comb,

I wondered if

there are still a few

poems left in my

chromosomes,

some philosopher's kidney stones,

to transmute the lead of the street,

into gold.

(if i'm lucky)

I imagined:

the smoky torchlit cave

of Alta Mira twenty thousand years ago

where people clad in skins and fur

drew a polychrome herd of bison

and deer loping across the ceiling.

And the reed-thin sun-blackened man

who sat beneath a Kakadu gum tree,

painting kangaroos and crocodiles

in X-ray style, white lines on bark

the vast world of his Dreamtime,

while mine is mired

in the prosaic of sidewalk gum,

paychecks, and weather reports.

my understanding grows

with all the speed of a snail,

.........but without the shelter

of the shell. oh well.