Stone Poem by Leo Yankevich

“For the stone which has been thrown up
it is no evil to come down, nor indeed any good
to have been carried up.”
—Marcus Aurelius

Only this stone is certain,
if only for a moment.
I touch it and look down
at the dark sea, a curtain

behind which life here started,
reminded that all things
are in a state of flux,
the living and departed.

And yet the bell still rings
over the sun-lit hill.
A padre gives a sermon
about eternal things.

“The Father sacrifices
his one and only Son.”
The fruit of an amoeba,
morphed into man, devises

an escape, the burden
too difficult to bear?
If only for a moment
only this stone is certain.