Ancient Rhythms

Ancient Rhythms

Middens are piles of oyster shells
left by migrants from the perennial winter
of the northern ice age
when the woolly mammoth lumbered
across the cool grasslands of Louisiana.
The nomads had no home
but the memory of a forest
might stir a tear
as they traversed the pelagic land-sea.
The camel species began
far from the Sahara in North America
where they migrated south
in riderless caravans
with their humps silhouetted
by the setting sun
to lead the grass-people to water and fruit.