Doxa 10: The Quarry

On the edge of Knife River quarry

in the frigid wind, the frigid wind

that fortified these rough-hewn

quartzite walls with icy veins

like bolts of lightning, frozen

beyond time. The world we have

made remains the world we have not

made. The murmured songs

of ancient stone fountains

and the deathless lamps by which

we live and move and are are

but riches from deeper vaults of Earth.

Three hundred feet down, a flock

of tiny birds flutters like tossed coins.