Rock Fragments

"My feet touching the ground are like fingers on the piano, playing from memory an old sweet song, of pine needles and sand." – Kimmerer, from Gathering Moss











Ferry Bluff

Wasn't really about
old county C out of Sauk Prairie–
wishful farms out there,
the kind you don't want,
too close to the road,
or twenty black
pick-ups staring right at you
in the rear view mirror –
these aren't really
the things anymore.

Can't even say
it was gravel parking lot
littered with teenage stuff,
Hamms cans, cig butt,
who knows, maybe that was a condom,
or even the little lip
of the Wisconsin
that was just peeking its way
up from the trailhead.
Would have been days
this was all fine, a getaway,
but now it is seen
as what it is: the edges
of things, visits.

No I was happier
when I took my socks
off up on that sandstone
overlooking
the cloud-lit canopy
of the Wisconsin from a few hundred up.
I was hot
as unshaded coneflower up there.
As I stood, my insides
were still.
There was no way
you would seen the stalk
of me grow
by yellow bud.