they are solid, as unmoving as a mountain
set in their paths as a highway
with thrice-remembered phrases
that fall trippingly to the tongue
with habituated if-god-tarries's
and shared skeptical grunts
a trilithion, alike in thought
communal belief and inquiry
she is easily crushed, yet subversive
not easily eradicated, this new spirit
and it suffuses her
they do not understand the melding
but she knows her time will come to bloom
as surely as black ink on white paper
will spread into a garden
a story that writes itself
-12/23/99
