“…a proposed limestone mine located near environmentally sensitive areas…”
–“Green Lake County sued over Skunk Hollow Mine,” Ripon Press, August 18th, 2022
I don’t know from experience
because I will never grow old enough
How creeping water paves a place
like smoke filling a cave, metal filings like dust on stone
to tell they are in distress; it’s their breathing,
the way they look, what people say
they want to do to them
Sometimes I scrape stone against stone
or throw one into the water
just to hear it dollop and sink
that the more I am out in the world
the more hesitant I am to mine it —
(When I was panicked, you moved your hand
from my temple to the place behind my ear
and made a sound like cattails
on a gravel road of crushed limestone)
Think about a raccoon 17,000 years ago
scratching out a depression
that whole time
Think of this depression
filling with water finely
Think about it from kayak and cornfield
or only from the road
