Inscription

When I was a boy there was a place in the woods I liked to go. There was a granite boulder that seemed like a mountain and I’d climb it and press my face into the skin of moss that grew on the summit. Strange today to think that was one of the happiest moments of my childhood.

 

Did I know as a child I was celebrating my tiny-ness? I think I must have known.

 

My friends were the crickets who lived inside an abandoned stove.

 

I did not, in those days, love my own wisdom. I merely loved shapes and sounds.

 

And the odor of the moss, like bread baking, with just a hint of pepper…