In New England rocks rise and fall
In the garden of my aunt and uncle’s house, in New England
There was a rock that would rise
They worked with it, gardened around it
Noticed its rising
And falling
Sinking down again into soil that had recently
Decided to lift it up
My aunt loved the rock
Did she love the migrations? The indecision?
She adjusted around it, season by season.
Underneath, was there a conversation between rock and soil?
The rock had surely been there for centuries before
my aunt and uncle arrived
Before America laid it’s name on the land
Before humans settled thickly or at all
The rock saw dinosaurs rise and fall as well
The earth feels solid, as we feel solid,
as we forget that solid is only one state of matter
The rocks seem to be the most stubbornly lithic
But they too are made and unmade
They dissolve, are rubbed into sand, are heated into molten rivers
And it’s all an undulation of species and rocks, coming out of the land and then resting back into it
Almost like breathing
The earth breathing out plants and rocks and beings
And then breathing them in
It all seems solid
Until we notice the rocks rising and falling in our midst