Something There Is That Loves a Rock

Something there is that loves a rock
that stands immobile through storms
and persists protectively steady.
My neighbor would move rocks,
piling them like laurels to industry--
his arsenal against time.
Does he think rocks will eat his carrots,
that he must ban all rocks from his garden?
A child knows the safety of a rock,
without instruction, he seeks for his--
a rock to speak comfort to him,
a rock that fits hand and pocket,
a rock he knows as constant
in a world of muddled change.
Peaceful granite hills stand over my valley
where men erect towers to busy-ness,
towers that soon crumble and crack
and must be taken down and built again
so that men can work in synthetic shadow,
scraping synthetic life from synthetic rock,
until time ends and only mountains
go on.

Karla Burkhart