For Ever

Today while skipping cross
the dry gully of a mesa
in my bright running shoes
I tripped over a holey stone
that once stubbed the toe
of a dinosaur when water
and plants were everywhere.
But creatures like me
did not exist then
and were not there to
eat plants or to run from
dinosaurs or to examine
random holey rocks.

If I had been alive I
imagined that I might have
glanced upward at the
burning stars and wondered
how far they were from
my cave and from my fire
and from my arms.
Too distant to reach
but not to see.
There is eternity within
our sight but not our grasp.

But when I held the
holey stone to my eye
and peered through it to the
distant blood red mountains
everything was framed
and smaller and focused
and the landscape melted
into me and the vessels
of my eyes became the
mighty meandering rivers
that carved deeply into rock
in lengthy time delivering
after eons the holey stone
that was now my telescope
my solid window to
my hours and my place my
tiny wondrous bit of forever.

Listen to a recitation of this poem…
here… For Ever (Recitation)