(Wind River erratic, 2015)
Erratics
I used to think I was erratic,
like it wasn’t a good thing,
probably from what family and teachers said.
Then I moved out West
where the spaces are large, and erratics are common,
not just the human kind,
but geologic ones too.
Big rocks lifted and moved and dumped
by the ice sheet that covered this land
not so long ago.
And I realized, I am an erratic!
Something displaced from my original home,
now part of the landscape, but not quite fitting in.
There’s something soothing about applying
the metaphors of geology to the human condition;
it gives perspective,
easy to see how every change
from bedrock to lonely erratic to infinitesimal beach sand
fits into a natural harmony.
(First published in my 3rd book, Sun Made Flesh and Fiber, 2019)