Styx & Stones

image borrowed from bing

Styx & Stones

The old man grimaced from lower back pains

that stabbed like a squad of stilettos 

as he skipped a flat rock across the river

eight times, once for every decade

of his life;

eight rippled rings spreading out

from each other, wider and thinner

until they blended once more

with the moving surface of the water

and then quietly disappeared,

first the loud splash, impact, vibrance,

focus, identity, notoriety, and then

invisibility, down into the deep green

again.

He squatted by the riverbank

for a long time, hunting, until

his strong big-knuckled hands

found another perfectly flat stone.

Rising up too quickly, excitedly,

it took a moment for his eyes to clear,

his nostrils to stop flaring,

his breath to slow down so that

he could hump the harmony,

harvest the heart of the moment.

He tilted slightly to the right

and then snapped the stone

from his thick shoulder

low to the ground and out 

across the rushing water.

It hummed as it left his hand,

slicing the air effortlessly

before hitting the water and then 

hopped like a sandstone bug, 

skipping ten times in magnificent motion,

softly splashing yet barely touching

as it leaped across the rapids,

clear and precise, shining in the sun

for a moment before bouncing hard 

onto the startled bank on the other side.

The old man’s heart was skipping too,

ten times lightly, and his smile smothered

his grizzled chin as he stepped boldly

into his next decade.

Glenn Buttkus

July 2012

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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