The boy, nine years old,
walked down an alley,
steep, dirt and weeds.
His toe caught a rock,
round, palm-sized,
and set it skittering;
…and, a miracle happened,
he had a thought,
an original idea.
The rock could be
over a million years old,
maybe a billion!
The past had been
an unreachable grayness,
far behind him,
Only the moment
was of consequence,
was of any utility.
Yet, now the past
had slammed into him,
bruising his foot,
While remaining unchanged,
lying still in the sun
a few yards away.
He picked it up,
held it in his hand,
held eons of the past,
And knew that when
he no longer existed,
and was long forgotten,
Indeed, when no one was left
to kick a thing
or have an idea at all,
This rock might still lie
somewhere, unchanged,
resting in sunlight.
He kept it the rest of his days,
from time to time noticed it
and remembered to think.
Bluster & Absurdity 