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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “I wrote this in the dark” Down in the Dirt, v207 (5/23)  Order the paperback book: 
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How Do Water and Stone Converse?
William Doreski
We pass a dozen waterfalls
sudsing creamy leaf decay
before a glacial boulder wigged
in ferns greets us with crystals
crowned by a derelict bird’s nest.
The boulder settled in this spot
during the last, best ice age,
which settled geological debts
neither humans nor gods incurred.
You admire the fern wig more than
the erratic, but touch the stone
with reverence like mine. Knowledge
inert in granite seems remote,
but sometimes I feel it tingle
in my fingertips. We also touch
the ferns, which survived hard frost,
and the nest abandoned late
in summer when the brood matured.
You press along the path toward
the largest series of waterfalls,
a stairway a hundred yards long
with risers of a foot or two.
The brook chuckles down this flight
with a silver cast impossible
to affix in digital photos.
How do water and stone converse
when we’re not overhearing?
You insist they’re planning for
a post-human world when sighs
of evolution resume molding
specimens riper and smarter
than us. The flux in which we swim
is a medium we’ve created
with our minds rather than our hands,
and its chemistry confuses us.
