ROCKS AND I

Each Spring without fail
a tribe of rocks turns up
to admire my garden.

As I bend to my work
among them, all sit silently
soaking up sun
or rain and
loving it,
out-meditating
every monk in the land.

Other rocks gather
round the fires I make
in the forest, where
rocks live peacefully
in great numbers.

Though nothing of me
is new to them
we share the fire--
I learn the great
dream of every rock
is to fly,
that children know this instinctively
and are adored by rocks,
who fill up their pockets
clamber into their shoes.

I've learned another thing
rocks like.
When I go hiking I take
a city rock with me, into the forest.

---poem from my Kyoto gardening days---
first published in Further on This Floating Bridge of Dreams, by Katydid Books