Dear Reader,
I spent the past year working on a new book, a poetry collection titled, Skipping Stones. As I write this, the first typeset proof sits next to me waiting for me to make my final revisions. I am excited to share this book with you. It is near and dear to my heart. In anticipation of its release later this year I wanted to share the title poem with you.
I wrote Skipping Stones in the early fall of 2021. The poem started with an image of a pond from my childhood where my friend Ronald and would I skip stones to kill time between activities at summer camp. There was something magical about skipping stones along a pond. Despite the inevitable, they look like they could bounce on forever. The great irony of human existence is that we long for permanence in a transient world. Skipping Stones is an attempt to capture that tension and put it into words.
Enjoy!
SKIPPING STONES
Little pebbles bounce along the old Bone Pond
Skimming along the glass like rainwater,
Leaving concentric circles in their wake,
Straining with all their might to meet the edge,
Hopelessly weighed down by the illusion
Of buoyancy. Each time a stone is cast
We cross our fingers and close our eyes
Hoping, praying that our little stone won't sink.
Little boys playing at God, defying
Gravity and Newton and all the things
That would make a good stone sink. Hoping, Praying
That our arms are strong and our aim is true
And that our little stones would do what we couldn’t do—
Make it to the other side without drowning,
Without being pulled under, swallowed whole,
With nothing but fading circles to
Remember them by—little pebbles
sinking, longing for the water’s edge,
Cast like prayers in the dead of night,
Hoping to find a listening ear.