The Rock

First, it blocks your way
then opens it, an amazing,
improbable grace, but actual.

And the force of its weight
when it hits you — if
it hits you — marks you for life.

And there is no escape
from its hurt, though its force
weakens even as its weight

holds. And you are
struck so hard, at first,
and remain so stunned

that nothing in the world,
it seems, can protect you
from its curse: that jagged

fate, that rock
against which the heart's wave
rises, live and crystalline,

and falls
and breaks most powerfully
into the foam of the spirit.

Copyright © 2004 Paul Murray All rights reserved
from These Black Stars
Dedalus Press / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission