A Communion of Discovery

Dedicated to Estella Leopold, conservationist. * Melting ice washed gravels down, burying the mammoth—hiding it through the ages. And I found a rock at its grave, with secrets deep inside. I broke it, crushed it, sifted it; dissolved it in a beaker, spun it by a centrifuge, and peeled back layers of time. Now only hidden fossils remain: Pollen grains and mossy spores— once floating on an Ice Age breeze. Now in that communion of discovery these small fossils yield the deepest glimpse through time