You can’t say hand without picturing either a right
or a left. You can’t think moon without
seeing it in one of its phases.
When the arrowheads rise
to the surface after the winter rains
you can’t say again. This is a first discovery
 
for these individual flints.
The arrowheads have become scarce, and this drought
makes the few that fall upward
from inside the earth gleam.
 
Here we are, discovering in a field where
such finds have always been made. Depleting the source,
people searching, although to say people is to picture
a kind of person, a specific individual,
 
child, or parent, or even a convict tired of being on the run,
and puzzling over what a gift the day has brought him,
sharpness and symmetry that even now could kill.

This article appears in April 14 2014.

Michael Cadnum is the author of nearly 40 books, including the National Book Award finalist The Book of the Lion. His poetry collections include Kingdom and the forthcoming The Promised Rain.