Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Firmness of rock


I hold memory from before your time
I contain a space you can enter
where you may find a universe as big
as the one you think is the real world.
I’m not easy to break or wear down.

Take lessons in constancy from me,
claim the power to stand your ground
but allow for the patient counsel of water.
When I stand in your way, go around
or be ready to wait eons to wear me down.

Go back to the pool in a temple of healing
where a god-man told a cripple to get up
and pick up more than his bedding.
To rise from the dead, you must pick up
the biggest stone in what you take for a world.

Do you begin to see what I am?
All of this, and more: your challenge,
your burden, your duration, your remembering.