What makes the boulder split?
Not thunderbolt,
nor hurtling meteor
or earthquake’s jolt.

To delicate
and gossamer
and fairy-fingered life
the spalled rock cracks, surrenders.
Once formidable, now hastening toward decline.

Thus toils the lichen,
the misty, gentle rain,
or, lighter still,
an idea borne aloft by barest strain.
A quiet decision,
expression of the will too soft to raise alarm.

And, like a spark
taking flight from bonfire’s glow,
the impetus for grand and violent change
stands as unpresuming David
to ten thousand-thousand Goliaths
and, underestimated, seems impossible that it were so.

Yet, that small spark has endless power to bestow.

©2022 by Jim Meskimen