A History of Snails

Helene Goderis

(jardins sous la pluie)

notes of rain hang heavy
in this thick garden,
among snails that bow
like fat plums or strange fruit
from the fresh branches

they rise up to the rain;
their golden shells a bright turban
they carry as they rise from the earth
    like sunken cathedrals

and once beyond
this canopy of young wood
the feeling anthers of a snail
blink at the beauty
of the moon shell

and the snail, now heavy
full of longing,
full of light,
is bent back down
         to earth