Snow Falling Through Fog

This is how we used to imagine

the ocean floor: a steady snow of dead

diatoms and forams drifting

higher in the sunken plains, a soggy

dust on the climbing underwater

peaks. But such a weather

would build a parched earth,

a ball of salt. Down the last mountains

above sea level real snow would sift

until it met the rising tide

of salt and the earth was perfect, done.

Now we think of the ocean floor

as several floors, vast plates

grinding against each other as metaphors

grind each other. We say "plates"

as if somewhere the earth

were flat, or we were

faithful to the way our round eyes

flatten the round earth whenever the lack

of a compelling metaphor gives us a chance.

The basins would never fill up

even with our bad ideas.

Information keeps our senses linked.

The fog thins and we can see

more of the air the snow defines,

the snow like a syllabus of starfish.