Poems from Kiev, Ukraine - May 15, 1994

The skipping stone

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The pond lies quietly in the spring morning mist. She has rested in this spot across time, edged with lilies, tadpoles, and fish breaking the surface snapping at flies. Nothing disturbs or changes her, natural processes are plentiful and predictable. She watches them with slow satisfaction.

A boy moves through the forest, making maps for his father and happens upon her lying in his path. He measures her with his eyes, as she is watching him from the depths. He draws her into his map and names her. She senses his easy familiarity around her banks he knows what to do with her.

He picks up a flat, round stone and flings it at pond’s surface. It skips across the water, once, twice before sinking below. Each skip feels like a touch. She is aware of an old longing. He picks up a second stone and sends it skipping across her smooth surface. Each skip reminds her of a visit, a conversation, a look from another life before time.

He stays at her side, skipping the stones, touching her, reminding her, awakening her from her long slumber And when he leaves, charting the rest of the forest, her memories run together like raindrops in a downpour, Or tears in a pond

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May 15, 1994 Kitchen Office/Lomonosova, Kiev, Ukraine

Revised May 20, 1994

Revised May 22, 1994

Revised April 14, 1999

It’s a fresh cool early spring morning and I can’t sleep. Then this came out. Perhaps it had been lurking in there for a while.