Small wonders 

I know they are moving; I am the one mowing the lawn and over the years I developed a mental map of each rock’s location. Two of them on the front lawn, one is half way to the street and one hiding in the middle of the flower garden. There is one under the Weeping Willow that I planted four years ago, three small ones barely seen in the tall grass next to the trailer in the back yard and a big flat one, protrudes right across from my bedroom window and the stubs of grass around his head have a reddish tint like a golden crown.

The one in the midst of the flower bed is the one I noticed first. Three years ago in an effort to add some color I cleared the ground around it and planted a pink cone-flower. The cone-flower being a perennial die back in the autumn and is unnoticed during the winter months but as spring begins its green leaves pop out of the moist earth, and I realize that the gap between the flower and the rock grew. This is my absolute proof that just likes the continents, and the oceans the rocks in my yard move. 

***

You! or should I call you white gray speckled granite, and in short, Granite? You appear so set in your spot as if you were always there and always will be. Half buried in the moist ground shaded by a variety of flowers, life is good. No one (including me) disturbs your tranquil existence.  The truth is that we are carefully walking around you thinking that you are asleep.

But you are not aren’t you? When no one is watching you open your eyes and camouflaged by the stems of the lupines, and the tall red Peonies you inch a little to the right, or maybe the left, or just backward towards the road. My dear Granite, are you trying to run away? Are you lonely and want to join other rocks and together bond and return to your prehistoric roots under the thick layer of ground.

***

I am what they call a salt and pepper granite rock. My appearance is not very distinguished, gray dotted with white. No one will cast a second look my way. From my place in the front yard, half sunken into the ground the tall stems of the flowers next to me shading me, I long for the sun and the company of other rocks that look like me.

Once we were together, a mass of hot lava flowing freely swallowing everything on our way. But then the cold air made us shiver and solidify. We became brittle and broke into many smaller pieces.

Later the wind and the rain scraped me and smoothed my face. It made me look round and soft on the outside, almost friendly.

But at night when everyone around me is asleep I can feel the ground under me moves. With smooth rhythmic wave-like movements it carries me ever so slowly towards my aspired goal. It moves like the ancient ocean that gave me birth and like an ocean, the waves will carry me back home.