Rocks

the landmines of the Northern Plains

be them on a section measuring a

whole, half, quarter or eighth

remnants of glacial recession,

stuck in the same general location

for ten millenia only to be piled up

and left in place for millenia more

they make harrows and combine headers

look like facial masterpieces from

Mike Tyson's early period,

so relocations to solitary heaps

are a part of the narrative on

the Northern Plains

lonely and forgotten,

the human story in

the indifferent universe

created by natural forces,

star stuff that came together

to create the heavier elements

and later the molecule chains

a meaningless concoction

left to rot and make meaning

from forms that are thought

to be perfect and universal

rocks have the good life,

they aren't alive

so they don't have to suffer

so they don't have to feel

so they don't have to know

essence and existence and

how one precedes the other

they are the physical universal

that's omnipresent,

the only characteristic they

have in common with God

if they could sing

Welcome to the Jungle flawlessly,

they'd be rock gods though

but unlike gods, they actually exist

and like gods, they are without meaning

and the like the farmer 

who picks and piles them up,

they go on and on and on 

and on until it all ends

for the farmer anyway,

the rock piles remain

like the Christian God,

ubiquitous, unchanging,

neverending

until the universe caves in

or the planet does, and

those eighths, quarters,

halves and whole rocks

traverse through space

as a new class of asteroids

floating on without a care

to be a rock would rock,

really and truly,

fully and completely

too bad the settlers on

the Northern Plains

have to move them to

give them solvency

and sustenance

for at least one party,

the process of removal

is a rocky endeavor and

pointless as all get out

and that's how it goes,

the myth of Sisyphus remains

the narrative but pride is still

taken because meaning has to

be made where one can find it

rocks and humans have

symbiosis, just not how

one might expect

and that's a universal

we can bank on until

the countdown to our

demise ceases