Strangeness of Stones

Woke up this morning with Sister Sunshine’s finger in my eye,
Brother Storm having left us after his visit to the city yesterday,
to an expectedly chilling reception by the populace.

Went down to the lake in the faux warmth of mid-afternoon winter,
Not even a seagull to beckon me, but I know why I came.
Stones on the beach, thousands of faceless faces looking up at me,
and a strange thing happens—it is still strange to me after the hundredth time—
that my breath quickens, my step falters, and I have to stand still,
when first my eyes filled with the sight of these stones.

What is it about them that so captures my soul and being?
Is it that they are ordinary and constant, ageless and ancient, self-sufficient and impersonal?
Yet it is a feeling that I have known them forever, countless déjà vus ago
that we have been friends and kin, that we have shared something
thicker than blood, older than land—
we have been together in stillness
since the beginning of time.