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RALPH MONDAY
Bonsai Rock
Amid Clearfork creek a limestone pyramid
Jutting ten meters high, weathered presence
Like Hector in the palace, surrounded on the
East and west by mountains older than the
Youngest Greece.
Twisted yellow pines like arthritic knuckles
Miniaturized by sun and moon, wind and rain
Sculpted, starved from lack of nutrients, never
The less, maintain somber dignity in the face
Of ceaseless odds, like old Turkish women
Preparing an evening meal.
Rock and trees a symbiosis organic root
Mineral mother breathing, drinking
Together a last eternal supper like
Palestinian disciples.
Recorded magic a timeless video needle
The past and present woven together
By unrocked solitude, the womb of
Centuries unheralded by non cessation
Of day, night, time enfolded in immortal casement.
They stand at the stillpoint, the observance center—
Making no judgement, giving little advice.
Once, in the 1940's a military train passing high on
Tracks cut into the side of a mountain disrailed,
Plunged into the flow, the stream.
Hundreds of young men would never see Europe.
Their blitzkrieg was painted there under the
Shadow of the stone, the fall from Grace absolute.
Piteous final cries blended and merged with
The voice of rock and tree.
No more to the mated pair than a falcon's gyre
In morning, an owl's lost lament at twilight.
All voices indistinguishable like the hollow
Cries from Dante's Vestibule or the contorted
Rooted muffle splitting the stony heart's center.
Copyright 1999
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