The Stones Cry Out

The stones are piled willy-nilly
on the hill behind my house,
gathering moss and lichens
in their brooding silence.
They lift up into a wall here and there,
peer out from the leafy debris
which has taken eons to build.
Far up the slope the landscape changes
into ledges, the skeletons left behind
by ancient glaciers,
barren cliffs where once my children hid,
where often I go to find the quietness,
a place where a still, small voice might yet be heard.
Sometimes, there are whispers of wind
in tall trees, the cries of red-tailed hawks,
the trickle of water singing its way
to a far-away river.
And once I heard the stones themselves
cry out,
as if to make me see them,
to see their long patience, enduring
winter after winter, the falling of stars,
asking me always to pay attention
to where the noise is not,
to the silent ones
who have seen God shaping a world.

--Timothy Haut, Deep River, CT