Stone Alive

author’s note:

When you don’t have a boulder (see last post), a rock will do.


STONE ALIVE

One day, feeling frustrated
with all the dust of our noise
I sat down on the ground
and lifted a rock
and to amuse myself, said:

“Can you help me, dear stone?
  Old as you are
  you must know something
  about life on this planet.
  Has age made you a sage?

“But no, I suppose
  only mountains and cliffs
  can give us wisdom.”
That plain gray stone
seemed so insignificant, so dumb.

But then as I relaxed
in afternoon idleness
I no longer asked, but merely gazed

and as that stone warmed my palm
I slowly became enchanted:
I no longer perceived the thing as dead
but as an entity
tightly contained within its own self.

I actually sensed an essence--
an intensity radiating
from a power within: a force
so subtle as to seem unreal
and yet as incessant and insistent
as the drone of a Stonehenge megalith.

But my tolerance for amazement
has its limits:
I soon lay the stone back down
then bowed with respect
and ambled on.

Since then, I’ve occasionally paused
long enough to meditate upon a stone
and though I appreciate them as solid friends
that can calm me on uncertain days
I’ve never again felt the same intensity.

However, I don’t doubt their power.  No--
the problem lies with my erratic concentration.
I know:

if such a plain gray stone
holds the energy of life
so do all the other rocks
cascading across this planet.

My goal is:
to eventually arrive at
the splendid open moment
when in a blaze of illumination I realize
the incredible force behind the disguise
of all these earthly things.

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© 2021, Michael R. Patton