Touched by Stones
 
I walk where Parmenides walked, 
Among the ruins of walls fallen 
Since his time, stones that remain 
Because they can, because they are 
Stones, and in their way speak something 
We cannot know, but be touched by 
If we listen in stone.
 
Better maybe to say they stone, 
Give them the power and standing 
Of a verb, one among the many 
Chiseled down to a noun, spoken
Over and over, that way we turn 
Verbs nouns repeating them until 
They fall down, as those walls have fallen, 
And now we mostly only remember, 
The way a noun might remember 
The verb it was when first spoken, 
Spoken into being.
 
I feel the stones awaken, 
Begin, how odd, to listen,
Or I imagine it so. Could it
Be they recall through my seeing, 
My listening and my imagining 
How it was they came to be the walls 
That once stood here upright and sturdy, 
Each one lifted by gifted hands, 
Placed on top of the stone beneath, 
Becoming a house, a bath, a temple,
These walls? 
 
I see him clear as day, Parmenides 
Walking among the tilted stones, 
Offering his right hand in welcome, 
And I don’t quite know if I imagine it, 
Remember it, or if he walks here too
Right now beside this water that flows, 
Flows from the spring above that gave
This place its name, Hyele.
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