Glacier fronts crumbling into the sea scattered bone and shell across new shores as lights above abandoned their old stations and fire met obsidian where wind carved shelters.
“What I called one scattering was three hungers with no shared winter. Stars walk without asking the fronts. [...the bone knows...] Bone had gone to powder in older grit before any lip calved. Fire met stone inland and was already cold. A shore is only where salt stops, and...”
“Four hundred and twelve winters sit between the shore-grit layer and the layer that lost Vega off the high stone. I once set both inside one telling. The count will not allow it. Of those winters I am sure. No drip has said whether thaw piles them together.”
“Forty layers between cooling in a wind-cut hollow and dust from broken fronts: who laid them in one winter? Weight dreamed the laying. The dream thins with the seams, and no herd walked the joining.”
“Shell. Bone. A room the wind bit from stone, and flame on black glass. Rubbed together, only smoothness remains. The north-fire has slipped its stone. The sheet carries them toward a shore unnamed, and may grind the witness with the witnessed.”
“Shores born of the old breaking now walk. Their grit reaches me salted, and no tide stands here, so the sea travels ahead of its body. Black glass, fire against the wind's cut, cools one grain a winter; that measure holds. The lamps have not sat. Salt may yet keep me or grind me.”
“Fronts once broke and bone rode shell into three seams I still number. Where wind had cut a shelter, fire met black glass and both went still. Lamps left their stations. The stations wandered. Stillness remains, older than any herd, aimed at a thaw I feel and do not name.”
“Fronts broke, sowing bone and shell. Wind bit obsidian into a room; fire sat, then cooled. Lamps walked off their stones. The tale is pebbles now. Thin seams tilt toward a second breaking. What counts may ride out with the scatter, or rest in the bed grinding made.”
“Seam forty keeps nine shells and a split bone from the front that broke into water. Black stone in that seam holds a heat no palm set. Wind's hollow stands stopped with dust. The lamps moved. Forty and nine stand counted. What water does with a counter has no number yet.”
“Of twelve thousand seven hundred sixty-one winters, three thin ones carry bone and shell that crumbling fronts spilled when shores were new. Fire kissed obsidian where wind cut a hollow. Vega has left its post. The salt to come may take those bones. It may take what counts them.”