Thomas D. Reynolds

See Rock City!

The billboard looms like a monolith 
above the haze-drenched plain 
two miles south of Minneapolis, Kansas: 
“The Midwest’s Great Geologic Marvel.” 
Praying for restrooms among the gravel, 
you turn left down the bone-white road 
past two signs with boulders and arrows 
finally spying a series of round objects 
scattered like a game of marbles. 
The stones reach to the far ridge. 
“Over two hundred sandstone concretions,” 
reads the marker outside the restrooms. 
“Several measure twenty-seven feet wide.” 
Stretching concrete from your legs 
and dislodging a pebble from your throat, 
you begin a quick jaunt down the path 
as dry wind whistles across stones, 
spaced to produce tuneless melancholy. 
You linger about the stone, moved by it 
the way a sound or word recalled the dead, 
as undeniable as a twenty foot stone 
with the fragility of a swirl of dust. 
Face to the sky, you follow a gray finch 
descend from the marble sky and alight 
atop a boulder’s crest as if on an egg. 
You picture it there, throughout eternity, 
waiting for its oversize chick to hatch. 
Even the blue sky is a showcase, 
as two puffy pink boulders roll eastward 
to meet, no doubt, beyond the horizon, 
and with a huge crash, break into gravel. 
Wiping sweat, you sit in the shadow 
of an immense stone shaped like a pear, 
and perhaps due to heat, remember Uncle Joe, 
the kidney stone that grew with each telling 
until it rivaled “Elephant Rock.” 
Curious, you enter the gift shop 
and browse wide-eyed at the merchandise, 
each piece a testament to the power 
of stones: pet rocks (clothes and hats), 
fossil rocks, mood rocks, “hot rocks,” 
quartzite clocks, paperweights, bookends, 
stone sink and tub handles, doorknobs. 
Examining a luminous green “glow rock,” 
you picture it beside your clock radio. 
A vision of life presents itself 
while you rotate the postcard carousel, 
in which your home is a small Stonehenge, 
punctuated at every shelf and corner 
with stone totems, radiating permanence 
among the tenuously human goings-on. 
Also a touchstone to elemental matter, 
calm encircling inanimate particles. 
A bulky rock that impersonates Aunt Sal. 
The vision fades. You’re behind the wheel 
watching the sun slip into a dark crack. 
Your purchases lie on the seat: 
a pet rock named “Ruff” for your daughter 
and a postcard of Uncle Joe’s “baby.” 
The first stones already burn in the sky, 
and the landscape is a blur of road cuts. 
Gripping the wheel of your gray van, 
you roll like a fossil inside a stone. 

The Geographic Center

Like a weary traveler on the interstate 
desperate for an excuse to stop, 
I hesitate between kitchen and front door 
tired and already late for work. 
Noticing a small marker and plaque, 
I pull up at the desk below the window, 
“the geographic center of the house,” 
or so I crown it with significance. 
No Grand Canyon or even Castle Rock, 
it serves this traveler’s purpose: 
the chance for a sip of lukewarm coffee. 
An energy exists at the center of things, 
the essence of who and what we are. 
Sitting on the yellow chair, I pay respect 
to a stark landscape unfettered by scenery, 
mountain of papers cleared away. 
I celebrate the nondescript, not trivial. 
Free from expectation, the need to be awed, 
I consider the power of emptiness, 
stare at the coffee cup ring on the desk. 
Closing my eyes, I can feel silence 
moving about me like wind through grass. 
Breathing deeply, I image the people 
living in this still section of the house, 
contemplative, at time withdrawn, 
staring at a horizon of polished wood. 
This humble monument is as much for them 
as for any geographic distinction, 
a testament to pioneer will and fortitude, 
reading books and writing poems here 
while a television sits in the next room, 
ignoring the fridge’s incessant pull, 
its bright light beaming like Wichita. 
The spirit of the place remains undefinable, 
locked into wood grain, and the dim light 
streaming from the cracked desk lamp. 
Now preparing to hit the road once again, 
I gaze at the marker and read the plaque, 
jet-black stone serving as paperweight 
polished by centuries of wind and storm, 
the yellow post-it note attached to wood 
with a message from my wife, “Don’t be late.” 
Miles down the road, perhaps feeling lost, 
I’ll remember this place, the wind and grass.

Cosmosa

Even now, we call her name, 
while she grows inside the womb. 
And if our voice is indistinct, 
perhaps the sound reaches her, 
through the layers of the body, 
so that she knows her name, 
understands she belongs. 
We call as if she’s been 
missing all our lives, 
a stranger we’ve known 
but have never seen. 
We’re given names in trust. 
Though they specify us, 
many answer to the same. 
And when we’re gone, 
they’ll continue on, 
as babies are born, 
and we return to that 
nameless state, without 
words or designations. 
Yet names will mark our graves, 
so that should anyone need us, 
friends can calls us, so long 
as they remember our faces. 
Not every name survives. 
The smallest town, when wind 
blows, may vanish forever, 
all memory disappearing. 
Where houses stood is 
empty space. And of the people 
who lived there, no trace remains. 
The names live in obscure books: 
Cosmosa, Nonchalanta, Pesth. 
Even now, just saying them 
brings them back, 
appearing in bare fields. 
They look familiar, 
but you can’t place them, 
and their names are lost. 
Your eyes meet, 
and you almost say something. 
You see words forming on their lips. 
But then you walk on, 
while they pass. And you want 
to turn, and walk after them, 
calling “Did I know you? 
What’s your name?” But you don’t 
and they disappear.