why sticks and stones when words will do the trick

i still remember this grotto and these small forces in mid-metamorphoses, not yet living, and suggesting character and gesture, but still stone. the stones are still; the impression of motion is just your mind racing to catch up to your eyes.

like skipping a rock across water, this photo makes ripples in my mind: i can recall rocking in a slow boat through a cave’s many limestone rooms, a tomb in the earth, walled with stone and filled with the rolling drone of pigeons, prayer rocks piled high by the riverside, my grandfather adds one more to a tower of wishes -

i wish