One Stone

One stone I plucked from meadow’s rill
of stream in sweetest lea,
while walking near the green foothills
in search of what is me…

This stone so smooth, unique in shape,
so many stories held,
yet found among this peaceful green
betraying where it fell.

Born of massive alpine giant,
cut from freeze and thaw,
jagged, tossed to stone faced foot,
yet free to rest and there it saw
the heart of mountain nature,
meadow bloomed and marmot’s den,
dark foreboding winter clouds,
drifting snow stacked on the wind.

But years reduce to minutes
when from a stone’s perception told,
still jagged, only slightly worn,
no more that toddler old,
when cast from mother mountain’s stead
by harshest winter and strong spring flood,
so tumbled my little traveler,
to aspen glen in water’s blood.

Here beheld to season’s stream
twixt spring’s wet flush and summer’s green,
lichen grown on sunny-side
and mossy beard on leeward lean.
Free perch to fur and feather’s stride,
by kind bear’s paw did start the ride
where after years with aspens passed
and nature’s character so impressed,
our traveler turned to lower climes,
upon a spring in flooded dress.

So fortunate our shaping stone
to find a lodge and grip at edge
of roiling mountain spring in break,
so foothold gained at sweet fall’s ledge.
Such grandeur did our stone behold
for all the open valleys, his!
Where hushing alpine whispers blow
and eagles soar to heights of bliss
against an azure fielded sky,
bright sun through every season true,
befriended by the mountain spring
and all that he could view…

Years passed by in season’s keep
and soft his jagged edges rolled,
as through his witness, knowledge gained
and so demarked his wisdom, told
only by endurance and courage in his honest lay,
that here our stone had earned his shape,
yet here he could not stay –

For strong spring flood released his hold
that years had so affixed,
and down the falls he tumbled slow
so swept by raging current’s tricks,
until he found a place to rest,
in flooded plain and season’s stream,
and there through vernal ebb and tide
did find his final home, it seemed.

Such a place in alpine meadow,
‘neath distant shadow of his massive mother,
witnessed life in slower sorts
by elk and moose, in grazing hover
near his summer stead,
where flooded plain now turned to marsh,
so beheld life’s cycle greened,
and deeper, slower nature’s march.

Our kindest stone in aging,
witnessed by his smoothest sides,
portrays the thoughts of God so shaped
by years of season’s loving tide.

‘Tis here I plucked this single stone
from stream bed’s rill in mountain green,
and so his story told me there
that I might from his history glean
the honesty of time’s passing,
the gift of aging life,
and find me there a peace in knowing
that nature’s way is temporal wife
to all who stop to notice,
to those who pause to listen clear,
‘tis just the kindest motions
of one who loves you dear.