Not without reason
did the stone break away—
its weight forever the mountain’s, its body
never quite its own—and demonstrate the gravity
of time, rocks shaving centuries
from its face, felled saplings pointing
to the power of a tree, brush and growth feeding
the earth in the dark once again.

Not without reason
did the stone warm to the hand of the sun—
its window to the storied life, its roof
to creaturely flight—and frame a narrative
of impermanence, the cool soil riddled
with panic, displacement no longer
a philosopher’s quandary, truths uprooting
other truths in the light once again.

Not without reason
did the stone turn from the fawn—
its pungent pores a hunger, its mad feasting
an abandonment—and present a façade
of descent, deeper layers to reinforce
a foundation, gradations of trauma
leveling calm, disequilibrium spreading
equilibrium in the twilight once again.

Not without reason
did the stone plunge into the thicket of the ravine—
its reach unreachable, its shooting stream
unknowable—and trust the animal
would scatter, eluding the advance
of the hunter, a man himself lost
from his pack, randomness grounding
the random in the resolution once again.

And not without reason
did the stone hold the deer—
its weight forever the stone’s, its body
never quite its own—and map a path
of release, water rinsing flesh
of its death, air lifting bones
from their fall, silence asking
for silence under the moon once again.