Stone Boat
Nov 12 2008


Every spring, the earth heaves up its bones.
Soil thaws, re-freezes
and stones appear.
The frozen ground
does its work,
and farmers gather them up
in stone boats,
drag them off
where they founder like prairie schooners
on fallow land.
So the earth seems inexhaustible,
its back-breaking harvest of stones.

On a spinning planet
nothing stays buried for long,
casting out its secrets
at the rate of 5 cm a year.
Bombs in the streets of Berlin,
from wars we remember
in black and white.
And caskets, with their bones
that fell where they lie.
And the fossils of giants
and ancient man.

And this living planet
in constant motion,
renewing itself from below
— its thin skin
crawling with life;
its intricate soil
purging itself of the past.