Fieldstones

 

This foot moves along 

the earth where Roman 

feet toiled and ambled, 

scraping skin on fieldstone 

walls. Blood on stones 

from age to age.

Calves and thighs push down 

through the feet in to the earth - 

pounding dirt into dirt, pushing 

it in and pushing it down.

Stones piled; 

some as walls, 

some as foundations, 

some as mounds of stones 

piled high. Stone simply 

piled neatly on stone.

Through the dirt and 

on these stones grow 

the flowers that have 

fed on the sweat and 

rain and blood of people 

and sky and people.

The wind blows over them - 

the flowers 

the stones 

the dirt.

And people live and die there 

on those stones, around those 

stones, about them. They are 

pushed down under those stones - 

pushed down into the dirt by 

the soles of the next generations 

feet. They go below the stones 

and they become them.

It is rare - the person 

who looks at these marks 

on the earth and says,

"There am I, a fieldstone."

• 8 September 1995