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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=460291" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Stone and I</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">By the edge of the mini-pond<br>where I sit when the weather’s fit for it, <br>there’s this stone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I’d like to call it a rock<br>because that sounds more dignified<br>and metaphorical and carries<br>more tradition, but<br>it’s a stone</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and on it grows a lichen; <br>not the vivid, flat, yellow and vermilion and red and black<br>lichen that grows on stone walls<br>by the seaside; this one<br>has those colours at its edge<br>but has a furry crop of tiny green fronds<br>cropping from its mossy green<br>which are quite vigorous in their tiny way.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I liked it so much that I tried<br>to get the other stones around the pond<br>to match, by douching them alternately<br>with urine and yoghourt in the approved manner<br>after dark for obvious reasons<br>but they didn't respond; <br>I guess stonecrop beautiful word<br>knows its own field so to speak<br>and won't be rushed, at least<br>it makes me treasure this one more</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If I had the money which I haven’t<br>and the patience which I don’t<br>I’d have a perfect, model<br>Zen garden complete with sand<br>which I’d rake with a wooden rake<br>every morning into swirly lines<br>with graceful sweeping Tai Chi movements<br>until I got bored</div><div style="margin:10px 0">but I just have this stone<br>with faintly Japanese pretensions<br>mine not its<br>however I’d like to think a Zen master<br>would quite approve of my modest intention<br>and say, less is more, more or less…</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and now I think of it, the stone<br>has its own Zen garden; though whether<br>you could call this an eco-system, <br>whether the stone and the lichen<br>have a relationship, is open<br>to question, as is<br>whether the stone so agreeably placed<br>by the pool well OK pond<br>has a relationship with the pond</div><div style="margin:10px 0">anyway, on a sunny day<br>the stone and I sit there together<br>if together is quite the right word<br>I feel we’re together whatever it feels<br>if it feels at all that is</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and I guess it's even possible<br>in an evolutionary view of things, <br>lichen on stone, first life on earth<br>and all that, that the lichen<br>and I are really related, with<br>a common ancestor<br>which would account for a lot</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and we sit there quietly in quite<br>a Japanese sort of Zen-ness<br>of being one with nature<br>and I become don’t laugh more stony<br>and still; as for the stone<br>I really can’t say but<br>It feels good</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and in this state of relaxed contemplation<br>which I guess is the point of those<br>Japanese gardens<br>it occurs to me that the stone<br>and perhaps the water too</div><div style="margin:10px 0">have qualities that I lack –<br>they know just how to be, <br>to be still, to be themselves</div><div style="margin:10px 0">so there may be a point to what<br>we sometimes call with the trace <br>of a sneer, <br>communing with nature</div><div style="margin:10px 0">since as Saint Augustine said<br>the whole cosmos is our<br>holy book; so why not<br>open it</div><div style="margin:10px 0">*</div><div style="margin:10px 0">[with a namaste to Augustine and Eckhart Tolle]</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=460291" data-title="The Stone and I de Michael Shepherd" data-description="By the edge of the mini-pond
where I sit when the weather’s fit for it, 
there’s this stone.

I’d like to call it a rock
because that sounds more dignified
and metaphorical and carries
more tradition, but
it’s a stone

and on it grows a li..."></div>
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