Stone Ellipsis

Those are just three rocks, right? Close together, but far enough apart
to see the light through. Arranged in such a way that makes you wonder,
or doesn’t, because our eyes don’t always see. Drops of dew roll off
each one, unrushed and un-rusted, like blood trailing down a fingernail.
Maybe they were siblings, polished and smoothed in the same river?
You could find more meaning in them; say the ancients used these stones
for baking, or worship; say their placement in a French cave was to honor
the horizon, to leave a piece of their history for us to find. Bogus. 
But that’s definitely a human trait—pausing to leave behind, as a means 
to go forward. It’s our strongest effort to cheapen death, to disavow dust,
(or so we think). We are absolute in our certainty that we know something 
that the trees aren’t privy to. We eat our egos, pull apart the hours,
gnash our teeth and pray. We pause, open all the windows in the house,
flip a light switch and the moments go on. Meanwhile, an elk moves through 
his valley, untroubled by a brother in rehab, income taxes, or disappointing sequels. 
This is not callousness, nor is it a lack of being. It’s more like a nick in the cerebellum, 
a small piece missing. And what do we miss, living forward and behind?  
Even the fox would be left saying to herself; “Why human? What about today?”

JOHN LEONARD

John Leonard is an English teacher and poetry editor for Twyckenham Notes. He holds an MA in English from Indiana University. His previous works have appeared in Chiron Review, december, Roanoke Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The Windsor Review, and Trailer Park Quarterly. He lives in Elkhart, Indiana, with his wife.