by Meg Freer
Ancient mountains, always alive,
speak more forte than tree roots.
Stones work their way up to the surface
with sedimentary enthusiasm that wearies
the farmer, who never finishes picking rocks,
no matter how many times he has turned the soil.
He piles them into small mountains of their own
as corner posts for split rail fences, or shapes them
into walls at once metaphysical and domestic.
— from Juniper Volume 4, Issue 2