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
