We Step on Stones After Heraclitus

Linda Leedy Schneider

We step on stones,
stones that float in an ever-changing river.
We are one with the stones.
Their minerals are in our bones.

We ride on a spinning ball,
orbit in a minor universe.
Our sun is losing energy.
Our moon wants to wander.

The Earth moved off its axis
after the last earthquake in Japan.*
My physics teacher once said,
"This is the way the world will end
not with a ´bang and a whimper,´
but oscillating on its axis
then cast out of its orbit.

Still,
we must trust the floating stones,
the river, the Earth,
our orbit and our axis.
Trust that "all things are one."
in "dynamic equilibrium."


* " ... the giant 9.0 Japanese earthquake
shook up the entire planet,
and it shifted the earth´s axis." NPR