A Rock

A ROCK

A rock sat on its rocky pile one day
and contemplated its existence

“I may have been tossed here” he thought to
his schistose self his minute cragginess his mountainous
minuteness

“by some agency out of the blue torn from some
far rock bed or thrust up from some seismic bowels

but here I am now in all kinds of
weather presently sitting in the heat of the sun
wondering out loud to myself what I’m

doing here rather than say gathering moss down some
hill slope sitting in some serene Zen garden
stubbing the toe of someone whose toe deserves to be stubbed”

The earth suddenly shook and crashed open and the pile he
sat on plummeted a number of yards below and
so did he landing on what was his head before and
now was his base

When he caught his breath again the rock said
“It’s been an adventure really
when I think of all the places I’ve
been in the last two or three millennia
alone!”

An ant came along and crawled up and over it

“God of rocks be praised!” he said

“I’m home!”

---

5/24/2004 (from Underwater Galaxies)

Categories: Poems