#rockstacks

River rock stacks I made while hiking along the Maumee River today.

Lay down these words

Before your mind like rocks.

  placed solid, by hands

In choice of place, set

Before the body of the mind

  in space and time:

Solidity of bark, leaf or wall

  riprap of things:

Cobble of milky way,

  straying planets

, These poems, people,

  lost ponies with

Dragging saddles –

  and rocky sure-foot trails.

The worlds

like an endless

  four-dimensional

Game of Go.

  ants and pebbles

In the thin loam, each rock a word

  a creek-washed stone

Granite: ingrained

  with torment of fire and weight

Crystal and sediment linked hot

  all change, in thoughts,

As well as things.              

Gary Snyder
Riprap