Above Ground

by Clint Smith

Look at the fish swimming under its silver surface. Look how the surface shimmers like sound. Look how the fish follow one another, how their bodies bend like strings of a harp. Look how this stone skips staccato across the surface then disappears with a whisper. Look how the ripples in the water never seem to stop. Look at the way the colors of the fish’s scales change as the sun slides across the sky. Look at the way the plants surround the pond as if they were trying to keep it safe. One day this pond will become a swamp and this swamp will become a marsh and this marsh will become a forest. Maybe one day my children’s children’s children will walk around in this forest and find the stone we skipped. A single fish can lay over one million eggs in a single year. Tiny plankton in bodies of water like this one produce over half of the oxygen on earth. My life is made possible by trillions of tiny mysteries. I exist because of so many things I’ll never see.