and time since has seen the seeming

pass of feet onto lesser-known ground,

around and back. Here, too, is just one shoe.

It’s as if someone sat on this rock and took it off –

along with the other one, obviously.

But, looking round, the other isn’t anywhere.

A puzzling conundrum. I wonder…

I wonder about the story of one lost shoe.

I wonder if the rock knows, if the rock

has some other kind of life underneath.

I take off my own shoes as I wonder:

Is a rock not just a rock? What else

but a seat on which to sit and think

about what lies along the way?

No God, perhaps; no time;

no deeper meanings; no hidden realities;

no love: for all just comes to nothing

in the end - like a star collapsing on itself.

And yet here I sit, still. Not vanished

in a flash of light, as is my wish, my prayer;

but hard against this rock, thinking about life