The cold, cold stones
In the deep night, move
They cross rivers, roll over highways
They gather outside my door
In the morning I find them circled,
Small and nearly smiling; telling tales
The ancestors lie under river water
They laugh in the summer
And bump against reckless Baptists
There are women on a green hill,
Not tamed, not smoothed;
They are stones out of water
Their quick feet always find the fairy road
Before the purple light finds them
There are city buildings like proud giraffes
On a conquered plain
There are roads that are powerful snakes
With ambitious children
And in the corner of the eye,
Stretched out pale and forgotten
But potent, subterranean, old and patient
There are the shadows of stones