I Found A Poem In The Forest

Tucked under a rock in which there is some kind of fossil. I never studied fossils. My friend thinks I have. He talks in terms he thinks I know. But I don't understand the past. I just walk through the forest. I came here as a child. With my mother. To the darkness between things large and old. We walked this path. I'm sure though I don't remember. It has changed though it feels familiar. Then there’s the poem. Under the rock. And the fossil. It's a poem about the past. Walking in a forest with her lover. It says, your hand in mine, I taste the sap of your kiss and count the rings of love. Awful poetry. The writer walks away into the darkness. My mother walks through me. Goes another way, her eyes closed. I continue on past trees, through shade, against the breeze. Holding the rock and the poem, fossils of dead things preserved. I imagine the creature in that ancient sea, its image being left in the rock. I see the woman lay down her pen, sleep, and become paper. I see my mother still moving through the forest making a sound I no longer recognize. And again I understand that I don’t know the past and keep holding onto the wrong things for the future.