In a Future Age
Archeologists will marvel at Easter eggs
our kids never found–the plastic ones
that crack along an equator, their domes
asymmetrical, their outsides an emery
of thousand-grit glitter. What old news,
by then, the dinosaurs’ feathers–
when geologists unearth fossils cured
around flossers and drones’ propellers,
when botanists coddle cotyledons by habit,
repotting the seedlings of simulacraceae.
Already I look at the daffodils that part
last year’s mulch, their crepe manes
twisted inside green sleeves, and without
willing it I think the shoots the shape
of throw-away butter knives. Already
a car alarm and a Canada goose
sound the same note and I marvel
that bird and horn honk off-tempo.
Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Ploughshares, and TriQuarterly, as well as other journals and magazines.