By a Pebble

Another old one that I thought was actually pretty good. A reader recently told me that it was not obvious that the poem describes the experience of a beach pebble from the pebble's perspective. It does.

Drawn to the shore
from where the dark lies
blanketing;
no sound has permeated yet,
but when the water's roof grows peaked
and breaks,
and hunched among our brethren we roll
up the hurrying slope of ancient bones
to unfamiliar light,

then!

Stupefying thunder breaks
the world upon us and the sound
cascades and which way we
are we do not know,
over-ended and upset
until such time

as home leaves us behind
blinded, and we lie,
listening to our disappearing comfort
and the silence.


11/16/2000