Boulders

Where do boulders come from? How were they made? They move when I cannot see. I watch them and never observe a change. However, after a while I notice they’re no longer where they started.

Boulders

Huge boulders of rock

The size of a buffalo—or a donkey or two

Come slowly marching

Down the mountain stream past my house

Remnants of the last glacier ten thousand years ago

All the way from Main or Vermont, or Newfoundland

Or some mysterious place further north

Where they’re coming from or going, they don’t say

I wonder what will happen

When they get to where they want to be

They can’t turn around and go back

Their home is not where they left it

The tectonic plates will have moved—far

At about two inches each year

And up-hill from the gulf may be down-hill then

They must move at night

Or some hidden time

I never see them move by day

Although I watch closely and carefully

They never let me see when they move

But over the years they inch ever southward

A turtle would pass them easily

But they live longer

I’ve seen the trees live and die long there

The people come and eventually go

As the Indians did

But not these boulders

They will march ever southward

Long time hence

Why they move or how

Is grist for the geological mind