Genesis: Primeval Rivers and Forests

If these weren't so very ancient,they might easily be found. But they aredeeper than subterranean Siberia,of a longer past than the oldest lichenfossil discovered in Rhynie soil, fromfarther away than found meteoriteremnants of three billion years.

These primeval forests and riverswere the first to believe in trees deadbut standing. They were the firstto envision the living in the decayof the down-dead, the first to conceivepossible orange rills of fungi, flutedwhite helvella, beetles, spider mitesand spotted newts, a warty jumping slughidden beneath fallen needles and duff.

Birds were among them then beforethere were birds, being mere wings of sunoff the rivers before there were rivers,being mere flitting shadows in the uppercanopy before there were shadows beforethere were canopies of flitting leaves.

And although these ancient watersflowing through storied rain forestshave never been told, I imagine howthey imagined before they conceivedfish as smooth as silver glass, fatand buoyant on river bottoms, howthey dreamed those fish swirlingin schools of crystal to the surfacewithout yet having bones, with noeyes of gold or scarlet gills, beforeflood or drought, current or cutbank.

Today the hiss of a single stemof seeded grass alone in a slenderwind recalls the silence in far riversand forests preparing for themselves,a silence expectant of wind, expectantof seed. A brief fragrance passing nowsuggests their beginning from absence,the fragrance of the origin of fragrance,damp oakmoss, sun on decay, the scentof nostalgia for a thing I imagined1 knew before I knew.

Pattiann Rogers. Georgia Review Summer 2006

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Summer 2006 Issue

270 To Our Readers

ESSAYS

271 Anne Goldman Starga,:iin; o the Atomic Age318 Paul Zimmer Hyacinth,' cant) the Bear331 Jennifer Culkin khthyosisDRAMA

345 David Wagoner Firvt Clayv

FICTION

301 Anna Solomon Lotto377 George Singleton 11'hi,lz Rocks itc! Cho_te394 Julia Elliott The Whipping

POETRY

292 David Clewell Athol Fins!, in I /Al At, ,•• Arms294 Lance Larsen Aperture296 Andrea Holander Budy Woman in the Painting; Beauty Parlor; and Spark314 Richard Jackson Write Your Name in the Space Provided316 Pattiann Rogers Genesis: Primeval Rivers and Forests326 Albert Goldbarth 1 , )o Her: Dignity; and Greener334 Robert Dana Looking for Shark's Teeth392 Chris Forhan In a Body407 Gary Gildner The Summer Afternoon409 Michael Waters The Bells410 Rebecca Morgan Frank Sonnet for ,t) /Witless

ART

336 Maggie Taylor :Sukicet to Change

REVIEWS

411 Benjamin Hedin The Religion of Now (on Kathleen Rooney's Reading with OprtChanged America; Stewart Justman's Fool's Paradise: The Unreal World of Pop PsyAuthentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture; Michael Kimmel- man's 7the Art of Life and Vice Versa; and The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by AndrewM. Swift)

423 Jeff Gundy Do We I) , ,cr (on C. D. Wright's CooliiVigil; Ann Lauterbach's The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience; Richai

WhatIs Real; Peter Middleton's Distant Reading: Performance, Readership, and Consumpand Robert Baker's The Extravagant: Crossings of Modern Poetry and Modern Philo

434 Lucy Ferriss 13c lug Rcal in I 1,11011 (on Brock Clarke's Carrying the Torch; Gar:Are Flying: New and Selected Stories; Richard Cortez Day's Something for the JournLolita)

http://www.uga.edu/garev/summer06/summer06.htm 7/13/2007

Untitled Document Page 2 of 2438 Kevin Clark on Break. Blow Burn by Cainille Paglia

442 Douglas Carlson on The Dast .; G:Ihoor: '! If* to the Ncirtural Wor d by Re

445 Robert Schnall on Collect../ Poe, 1(143-2004 by Richard Wilbur

448 Book Briefs by Patrick Madden, Lynnell Edwards, Danielle Pafunda, Deborah Bog(

455 CONTRIBUTORS

http://www.uga.edu/garev/summer06/summer06.htm 7/13/2007