Return

evening crawls toward its end
heavy head leans to hand

eyelids closed tight
as mind drifts toward sleep

brief review of day
contemplation of what is to come

then silence
quiet
return

A Skipping Stone

A skipping stone, chosen with care by human hand,
breaks the still glass of lake serene;
for stones remember what time forgets,
and in their flight, recall all the more.

What does it remember?
The molten cradle of its birth beneath the sea,
the mountain’s shattering rise from the deep,
the patient sleep in riverbed and shore.
The warmth of the palm that cast it forth,
the whisper of air between each skip—
and how, in falling, it becomes again
what it has always been:
stillness beneath all motion.