I asked a writer,
After reading some of his verses,
“Where do your ideas come from?”
He regarded me a little curiously,
Then he said,
“Take a stone,
One stone…
Any stone.
There’s an idea–
A lot of ideas.
Is a rock a miracle to you?
Do you understand that stone–
Know anything of its history?
How it was made?
By what means it got to where it is?
If, to you, it’s
Just a stone–
And just there–
And why get excited over it, and all that,
Why, then,
You’d be hard put to find ideas
Anywhere in the Universe.
Surely that stone
Ought to produce,
With all that’s happened to it,
At least an idea a year–
And that’s several million ideas!”
I was a little shame-faced–
But I’ve been regarding rocks–all rocks–
A bit suspiciously ever since.
I wonder what they’re thinking?
by Ray Romine Tuesday, October 22, 1946
