ON THE SPOIL HEAPS
[for Dorothea]

tink . . . tink . . . tink
the hammerblows
flake ironstone chips
till the fissure splits
halves fall away
and after darkness
three hundred million years,
sunlight falls
on perfect fronds of fern.

© Robert D. Sutherland, 1976
(published in Applecart #1 (1979), 23 and in This Awkward Mud (READ ILLINOIS, 1964). p. 11