THROWBACK THURSDAY
Image by Louise Dickinson-Brown
ROC
By Lewis Turco
Stones are falling from the sky
somewhere at sea. The clouds part,
and a boulder edges through, slowly,
froths of vapor trailing from its edges.
As it descends, behind it
there is another, and yet
another: A column of stones
dropping toward the cool blue mere below.
They have always been falling,
for how else would there be waves?
The brown surface of a stone touches
the water, dimples it; a circle swells
about its bulk like the lips
of surprise. The mouth swallows.
The astonished wave widens, begins
to roll toward the islands and the coast.
It picks up substance and size,
the fluid force moving through —
not made of — water, this strength of stone.
Within the zero zone another grows.
No one knows where the boulders
fall to sea; no one has seen
the bird, great beak filled with rocks, the cairn
of time piling upon the lost sea bed.
From an unpublished manuscript, A Book of Beasts, poems by Lewis Turco, illustrations by Louise Dickinson-Brown; the poems may be found in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition.
