Boulders and Stones
Michael T. Young

Along the long unspooling trails
we walked through the tulip poplars
of Hawk Mountain, over the occasionally
rotting log and rocks arching their backs
under our feet. You’d pause and point in the air,
“Hear that? That’s a black-capped chickadee.”
Turning to a hemlock you’d stoop
and gesture to where the bark was gnawed,
“A southern red-backed vole did that.”

There seemed to be clues everywhere,
traces of what passed by before us
and that you could reconstruct into a story,
like Theseus picking up a thread,
and following it to where the dark
winding labyrinth gave way to light.

Except we went on, following the trail up
to the ridge of oak and boulders
that capped the lookout, a ledge
where we could sit and watch the hawks
circle the slopes, looking for those same
narratives, while we unpacked our lunch
and settled into the warmth radiating
from the stones under us, these sleeping
beasts no one dares to wake.

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Michael T. Young’s Comments

This began as a memory of an actual hike with a friend who was a biologist and could point out all the nuances of nature along the trail. It amazed me how much was going on around us that, if you know the language, can read as easily and with as much pleasure as I read Shakespeare. But the drama in it, as in a Shakespeare play, came to the surface as the poem progressed, since so many quiet things in nature are life and death to so many little creatures.

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