by Chuck

You have seen how a pebble dropped in Pond O'Reille

forms rings--silent, graceful, growing ever-outward

Tho the pebble passes in a second's fraction

taking its long, cold lonely fall

and only its memory in the memory

of the water's surface

remains to explain the multiplying rings

As the pebble grows more distant,

black cold folds out the light

But the rings grow wider, happier, faint

Until they disappear in the speckled sunlight and mirrored mountains

The waters of my heart, deep and clear and clean

can speckle with sun

They closed around you as you fell

And my heart's memory of where you entered

forms rings growing ever-outward
softly, surely

Attracted were you to public power

as moths to candles
and that is a ring

Wished I that through some great surge

I could have granted your wishes
and that, too, is a ring

Understand that still you fall through the deep

that power is not what I seek

But to protect those who do

as I did, great memory, for you
and that is a ring

Bless me then to grow with our rings

softly, symmetrically, as is my nature

You have seen how a pebble dropped in Pond O'Reille

forms rings which leap to grow
then the outer rings vanish backward
to the last and strongest

And there shall I be again, carried on

a speckle of late fall's dawn sun
when the first fragile ice has formed
spider webs between the clean rocks
in the shadow of great pines

At the foot of that great mountain,

the mountain in whose shadow
all live
and all die

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