Go Inside a Stone

Poet Charles Simic wrote "Stone":

Go inside a stone.
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle.
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill --
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.












Were I to enter this stone, I would whirl and eddy, soft silt loosening and lifting, shadowed by water gliders skipping above rippling circles of leaf and sky, mindless in a dream of wet weightlessness, content with my swirling sable swoops.