We Make Mud

Stones that Float

There are stones along this river’s muddy bank that do not sink. They float, though in us brothers’ hands, these stones, they feel heavy to us brothers — feel the way that we believe stones should feel: hard, solid, things made from the dirt to be out over the dirt thrown. Throw them into the river, though, and these stones become boats that float on top of the river. Us brothers, we don’t know what to believe when we see a thing like this happen. This hasn’t always been the way with us brothers and stones. There was a time when, us brothers, we remember stones that used to sink. We’d throw them up and above and into the river and watch them disappear. In the darkness of the river we’d hear these stones go plunk and plunk. Maybe now it’s the river and not the stones. Maybe it’s that the river is more mud than it is water now, and the stones that we are throwing aren’t really floating. Maybe what these stones are doing is, they are just sitting there the way that stones sometimes sit in the mud: sit, and sit, for years, for centuries, until us brothers come walking up and along the river’s muddy shore and reach down with our muddy boy hands to pick the stones up from the mud. We pick the stones up from the mud so that we can throw them, so we can see a stone in flight, can stand and watch this thing without any wings rise above this earth.