Flying Rock
Imagine if we were really on a rock,
an actual flying rock, like in the stories,
and we were spinning, dizzy-drunk
through an airless sky.
Imagine if there was fire under our toes
and in mountains and in the stars,
plotting and boiling, rocking and roiling
and we just didn’t mind.
What if there were no scenery-shakers,
no glacier-breakers, no cloud-movers
or sun-wallahs and things just happened
because physics said?
And what if we were really undirected,
save for the flip-flips of chance and whimsy -
butterfly shudder, snake or ladder
until dead?
Nina Parmenter
If you have any
thoughts on this poem, Nina
Parmenter would be pleased to hear them.