Untitled #1

Circa March 2010

I

Time rolls the jagged rocks of Memory,

in the endless pool of the swirling soul,

click-clack

click-clack

click-clack...

until even the sharpest are smooth and rounded,

lying as equals among the innumerable forgotten

in cold quiet.

The heart, in years, grows heavier from them,

but forgets their names, their source, their histories

as they spin through the whirlpool

and come to rest.

II

Which is preferable?

The young pool with few, jagged rocks:

evident and clear,

avoidable or nameable,

or distinct or painful

or beautiful or ideal

or clear or touchable

or remembered.

Or the old, heavy heart,

troubled by nothing

Apathetic after the churning

Burdened only by a seabed of tired pebbles to ancient and dead and forgotten to be of use or of note.

III

I skipped my first rock somewhere in Montana.

Lonny, the Indian, showed me how to cup it in my hand.

How to find the smooth, flat rocks...

How to throw them into that still pond with my wrist.

Countless beaches with countless stones rounded by the centuries. By the ages. By the eons. Old, old stones.

Thrown by a child

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IV

An old man sits in the quiet heart-pool

sifting among my pebbles

and throwing them away.

Forgotten as quickly as their swallowed ripples.

V

Pound, waterfall.