A Stone Hits the Ground

A stone hits the ground and
wonders how it got there

A house stands on its foundations
welcoming its guests

A gust of wind turns a corner
and thinks itself clever

A river roars from its source
yelling all the way to the sea

Corks and people float on the world
thinking they’re top bananas

Bananas hide in their skins from monkeys
but when found out are cheerfully chomped

A raindrop never wonders why it was sent
but fulfills its duty wherever it lands

A window sits in a blank wall letting in all the
light indiscriminately

Sights from everywhere are here for the viewing
falling upside down on our retinas before being righted

Signs on the other hand are slipped into sights
the way hands are surreptitiously slipped into gloves

The heart reads the signs with luminous precision
once the crust of the self becomes lucidly transparent

Nothing by itself is of itself alone
but rather everything’s an immediate echo of God’s call

Every sound in the universe falls into place
as Him humming to Himself within everything that is

We are as much that humming as nightingales and cataracts
waterfall crashes or twittering wings in the dark

Where have you gone? Why aren’t you listening?
Once you hear it you’ll disappear forever

And in your place a person not quite a person
but one of God’s specifically spotlit noumena

Sitting in the sunlight or sleeping in the dark
where owls fly and trucks change gears chugging uphill

Where some hills rise up a little higher than others
in order to be more noticed in the crowd

Where human voices intermingle to form
a single oratorio

Where amen can be heard with the first
footfall after waking

Where the earth folds up its cloudy blanket
spinning at its leisure

Where a stone falls to the ground
and wonders how it got there

Where this poem waited to be born
and now opens its eyes and looks around

---

8/4/07 (from The Sound of Geese Over the House)

Categories: Poems