Continental Drift

Continental Drift

Destruction is also a method of learning.
We break things apart to see how they are made.

Hand the little boy an object. Watch him
smash it into ground, bring it down fast, a comet

plummeting. Watch the girl stacking blocks,
how she shrieks, delighted, when the pillar teeters,

encourages the collapse with a swatting palm.
Every shattered thing presents us with an opportunity:

to know that matter holds tight to itself only
if we want it to. That gravity will do its job whenever

we ask, anywhere on dry land. Pottery shards,
bones released of their organization, continental drift:

our falling and scattering sends our voices
spiraling into the far future, civilizational tea leaves.