RipRap

Credit: Bruna Fernandes

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
      placed solid, by hands  
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
 in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall

riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,

straying planets,
These poems, people,

lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
             and rocky sure-foot trails.  
The worlds like an endless

four-dimensional
Game of Go.

ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word

a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained

with torment of fire and weight  
Crystal and sediment linked hot

all change, in thoughts,   

As well as things.

~ Gary Snyder