Surface  /4.

 

It shapes the surface of the stone,

leading in all directions and away from self

into a world too large to follow,

and a place where the darkness

grasps the closed fist.

 

Though the blind color of reason holds firm

that door from which you might return

through time and time again,

adding once or twice the skilled architect

of numbers in that valley of faceless

but not nameless, homeless but not

blameless others.

 

From the top of that huge rock the sunset spread in both directions and the sunrise was a

pebble, caught in flight by the moment's reason and allowed, as a river is allowed, to

fall and rise with the tide of stars.

 

Once again the impressions of a hasty retreat were left in the sand, were scattered to the four winds, 

were interpreted in a context

removed from which impressions gather dust

along the shore of ten thousand lakes

or huddled around that pebble

 

which you found

and which you hold

in your hand.

 (Photo by Kristin Hiler)

 

 4.