Release

I’d love to say that my pebble throwing could cause a wave,
whisking up a flattened lake into a storm cloud-
thunder blue, tempestuous, and deeply noted.
But no. There are just ripples. Little ones
like merry-go-rounds
spinning some happy swirls and pretty patterns
on the surface of things.

So instead, I’d love to say that my ripple making could stop walkers on their tracks, stalled with the sight of movement and magic.
But no, they’d only see the ordinary, the everyday.
And even if they took a second glance, the ripples would have tip-toed
out of sight, their memory now enmeshed in what they’d call the lake, the shore, the very definition of their Sunday stroll.

But who am I to say I’d love these things?
And who am I to question pretty patterns?
Because sometimes we just need to let go,
to release the pebbles with our best shot, our best fling.
And then who knows-
maybe just the surface will be skimmed,
and maybe for just a fleeting second
but for those moments, as the pebbles greet the surface,
sunlight dances, physics and water flow,
and all that was ordinary is suddenly lost to the altogether new.

It will be still again.

Until, that is, your next throw.
Until, that is, when the very surface is altered,
not with storms or thunder,
but with the repeated act of letting go,
letting your grip on the stones fly to the wind,
letting the pull of gravity make itself known.

And before you know it,
there is a mighty splash.
Again
and again
and again.