Like Millstones

From my high place I stood and watched
the dog turn a half-dozen cows,
efficient as a barking rudder, and my

father came to me and said Why
are you looking down? and I said
I look like you. That you do, he said and

left again. The stones in the road
stared back at me. Man of action, they mocked.
Don’t say such things, I told them. I’ve only ever

loved you. That’s true, they said, and let me
pass. The wind, comfortable today,
parted the high grass like hair and came

back around to me, carrying the voice
of my mother on it. Don’t let your
thoughts stay too long in one place,

she said, because it’ll be hard to get ’em
moving again. I thought to answer but the
thorns might have been listening, so I only

nodded, but my shadow did not, and it
stretched too far out in front of me,
so I gave it my back and listened to it

try to catch up from behind. You still
here? asked my father. Yes, and so are
you, I said. Stay, then, he said.

Stay and watch. I knelt in the dirt and sifted
some of it in my fingers, and there were
no coins there, no blades, no pencils. What am

I watching for? I asked. Jinx rose up
out of the hedge and his look asked me
who I was talking to, and I scratched

his ear and used his back to help myself
stand, feeling my bones grind together
like millstones. like implements of earth.

~ S.K. Orr