"Place cannot be body," writes Aristotle,". . .qua containing, it is different from the matter." He'srestating one of Zeno's paradoxes. Putsimply: the cicada's shell is notthe insect, even while it's worn. But what you and Iunderstand, reader, is that place makes a body. Thevesper iris is named not only forwhen it blooms, but also where—along the marblexyst of a far-off monastery, its blue lipsyawn open (for a moment) to receive the evening prayer. Are its dark inner folds place? Its green stalk?Zeno would say no. In his vision of place, nothing grows; a child walking home neverarrives; arrows stall and dissolve mid-flight—their ghosts thickening the summer air likebirdsong. But, reader, we know the world to be otherwise. See how the Kentucky warbler's brittleclutch of new-laid eggs curls opposite the nest's round palm. Who firstdrew together the debris of a space—bound theeven-threaded twigs and pale strips of bark, the dryferns andgrasses—into a world-made womb? Who chose the first lonely crook ofhawthorn or honeysuckle on which to settle and create?I must stop to tell you, reader, as I've onlyjust learned: If a cowbird lays its eggs in that same nest, aKentucky warbler will simply build another over top.Left underneath, the eggs—warbler and cowbird, both—might yet hatch, might tremble and call out. But they have already ceased to be bodies.Now, in their dark net of tree and reed, they are partof place—are only womb through which the next clutch comes.