Penn Kemp

Do you remember the days
when silicon was an element
central to sand, the sense of
grit between your toes on
the beach just outside the
reverberating slap of the old
screen against the door
jam where wood never quite
met wood and was kept
together by hook in eye?
 
It was revolutionary then to
discover silicon also sprouted
in the segments of scrawny
horsetail that surrounded
the cottage as soon as sand
met any sort of soil.  You’d
chew the stalk thoughtfully,
its brittle twist into saliva,
thinking dinosaur, this plant
alive at the same time and
huge the way the past is
thrown by a trick of light
projected onto shadow.
out of all proportion.
 
Yourself the size of an ant
in a jungle of horsetail.
And then the thud of approaching
brontosaurus, its jaws
dripping green weeds the
size of trees, its wet eye
unable to focus on anything
as small as you at seven.