Flint

feet ground unfeeling
wheelspun by flybuzzing
the roadwound round my path's sand
that silent accepts all steps
as time does progress

in front of me I find a flint new split
the two bits thunder grey and cold
ungiving to my taking flesh and bone

sundered before - part of one hard shard
dulled; all Mankind's power over the Earth
could have been built on this
absent corner stone : the last breaks
as blade sharp as the first
cutting edge tool must have been
Nature's accidental gift

a sound trapped in this
halved curve of rough white
silica skin that so shut out life
that it survived millenia
of dinosaurs and men to rive now

how? why? this unsound flaw an opening
escaped from adamantine carelessness?
I take it home to place
on my windowsill to look at
now art is not as in prehistory
about trying to make sense
of what we don't understand
but when all innocence is gone
finding mystery in the land
what I can't apprehend
as God in my hand

and comfort that this stark beauty
of truth will still be here
when someone else walks on my path
I've become sand