Geology
By Robert King
I know the origin of rocks, settling
out of water, hatching crystals
from fire, put under pressure
in various designs I gathered
pretty, picnic after picnic.
And I know about love, a little,
igneous lust, the slow affections
of the sedimentary, the pressure
on earth out of sight to rise up
into material, something solid
you can hold, a whole mountain,
for example, or a loose collection
of pebbles you forgot you were keeping.
Copyright Credit: Reprinted from the Marlboro Review, Issue 16, 2005, by permission of the author. Copyright © 2005 by Robert King, whose prose book, Stepping Twice Into the River: Following Dakota Waters, appeared in 2005 from The University Press of Colorado.
Source: 2005