by Hilary Sallick, from the chapbook Refuge:

For Me, A Bench

The surface of the rock
was scrawled a palest green
by petals or dots rough-clustered,
a texture that wouldn’t
be brushed away;
and emerald-dark miniature
forests of moss
mingled with the lichen;
and acorn shards, bits of leaf,
and the long orange needles of pine
had scattered themselves
on the rock. I settled
down, soon wishing for a hand-lens,
to see and study the intricate
fastenings of life to rock.
(Or was it the other way around?)
I was thinking of everything, all
wound up together, how if a powerful
hand lifted the rock, a layer of earth
would come up too — so deeply
attached was the rock to the earth,
as well as separate, resolute,
and of a singular interior.

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