Dick Barnes – March 7th, Iyengar All Levels

For a short trip through slick-rock country.

GRANITE INTRUSIVE

Where the clean wind scours the rock—

sun like a hammer, ice the other season—

there's the life, said the lichen,

that's the life for me.

I'm so glad we found this place

murmured the moss

before the tourists came.

Root of a palo blanco

in thin bark like white paper

crept down over bare rock

to annex another spoonful of soil

and murder the moss that had made it:

I like a place that's been spoiled

just enough, said the root, snuggling in.

The rock didn’t say anything at all.

Why would it?