“The Folding Cliffs” (page 49) by W.S. Merwin

The Mountain

3.

Some came from the invisible islands sinking
already far ahead into the past some had become
what they were only there on one island in the waning
course of its age and then had been carried backward
into the future on an island from afterward
where they went on to become what they would be only there
and then were ferried in turn to this mountain to continue
themselves some from the sea cast up on the surprising shore
some from the air in a dream of roots so from one branched
coral polyp waving far off in the unanswering
night before the gods the family of coral and its white choirs
came into being so from one star in the shallows
the constellations of starfish moved outward so
from the mussel its child the hermit crab emerged
at the foot of the mountain so from the fronds floating in
on the waves the ferns were formed that woke on the mountain
after the night ran through the narrows of changing
in the darkness without eyes and some were born in the sea
some in fresh water or on land so in the caves were born
the crickets of each cave ground crickets and when there were trees
tree crickets swordtail crickets and the sound they made
that in time would be called singing ran through the mountain
born only there were flowering trees and lobelias
and birds that discovered them and were changed when they tasted them
born was the plover into flight born were the birds
each from the wingbeats of the others born were the guardians
the noddy at sea guarded by the owl on the mountain
birds passed the peak in high streams that blacked out the sun
and at daybreak the wet hollows of the earth opened wings
and flew up in answer into the light and the infant
shoots of the taro uncurled and reached for the morning