Further Guest Reflections in Poetry

Image courtesy Zach Pine
Group Beach Balancing

Raising the Rock Sculpture
   You hold each piece in 
   place, wait 
   for the equilibrium
   that is there (or not) 
   to rise, as the rock, from 
   your withdrawing hands 
   before you shift
   its uneven mass
   minutely into the next 
   attempt: precession
   of the small worlds, or 
   a breathing like your own 
   you must remember 
   to maintain that keeps off
   the trembling from your hands.
   The balance is achieved 
   through careful, even 
   tedious effort, through
   unlikely juxtapositions for which
   your only intuition 
   is the bare 
   confirmation of fact: stone
   motionless on stone.
   The sculpture
   is an artifact not 
   of the wind or shaping 
   surf but of a mind, set 
   by wind and surf and the soft 
   breathing of time 
   at an improbable angle 
   and height, rising 
   tilted plane upon
   plane to overlook
   the undulant world, unlikely 
   to endure.
Freeman Ng
Group Beach Balancing Participant