You Rock

Unlike the rose, whose life
is all too short;
whose beauty, transient,
strikes the heart
olfactory refrain,
melancholic pang,
intoxicating ache,
caressing right brain

you … you resist the tides,
whose rhythms try to change,
but never seem to wear you down;
you bear them easily.
The temporal perspective
that measures your sojourn
belittles our lives
to appear as nought.

You draw out the time
to more than long,
so barnacles and limpets
can confidently cling
to your immense foundation;
testament to your solidity;
our permanence is relative
as it sits beside you, Rock.

But how significant are we
considering the Universe?
By how much mega-time is
it’s longevity, beside ours?
And yet neither you, Rock
nor Universe can judge,

because

there is no poetry
in the cosmos
without a human soul.

(read the author’s commentary on this poem)

© 2011 John Anstie