Member Poem

The Inertia of Permanence

We stared slack-jawed at the solitary rock lying
in a newly excavated hole, cruelly exposed
to icy spring winds after eons of undisturbed solitude.

Backhoe, pneumatic jack hammer, mild expletives, worse
had proved powerless against its dogged desire to remain
in this particular loamy cradle carved by the last retreating glaciers.

We could have blasted its ancient essence
into a jagged pile of detritus to be crushed and ground
into a million motes of indistinguishable dust.

Instead, we surrendered to the inertia of permanence,
inviting it to share our future abode, fully aware that its
residency will long outlast our own earthly speck of time.

previously published in The Carlisle Mosquito