painting by Marlene Vine, poem by Roy Herndon Smith
rocks, the consonants
of matter, groaning, rumbling
small stones clattering
the immense plates of
the earth, silient and stable
until they crack and shake
and homes tumble down
in heaps of rubble we sort
through to build back up
sand rasping, and dust
gathering and whispering
into bones and flesh
words we do not know
but are, all is, inscriptions
in another tongue
dust 