The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth’s dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail’s fury? All
I think is that if later

I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.
~Thom Gunn “Considering the Snail”

…who has a controlled sense of wonder
before the universal mystery,
whether it hides in a snail’s eye
or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ?
~Loren Eiseley from The Star Thrower

May the poems be
the little snail’s trail.

Everywhere I go,
every inch: quiet record

of the foot’s silver prayer.
              I lived once.
              Thank you.
              It was here.
~Aracelis Girmay “Ars Poetica”  

What do I leave behind as I pass through to what comes next?

It might be as slick and silvery and random as a snail trail — hardly and barely there, easily erased.

I might leave behind the solid hollow of an empty shell, leading to infinity, spiraling to nothing and everything.

Instead, just like the persistent snail, I am not my own.

I pray, grateful, for this slow passion of words and images;
there is unending wonder as I make deliberate progress on this journey.

I was here and so were you. And we ultimately belong elsewhere.