Dan Coyle
A Blessing

Desperate for remembrance,
I walk the beech and poplar forest path
near home, and when I find a stone
about the size of a Nittany apple,
I snatch it up, put it in a rucksack with others,
and take the whole lot to the creek
for a proper dousing and blessing.
Then using all the arm-strength left me,
I chuck them one at a time
to the right and left of me as I walk home.
Believing as I do that stones can talk,
I hear one inquire of another years from now,
“Do you remember the day
we were lifted up, brought together as one,
cleansed of the clotted earth and for the first time
in our earthbound lives cut through the air
like forest birds and granted this new resting place?”
And I hear children demand of parents years from now,
“Tell us the story of the Old Man of the Forest
who believed in the holiness of stones,
who seeded them in rows up and down
the forest path to bless and protect the forest
forevermore. Tell us that story. Tell us.”

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