Kicking Cairns

Nothing recommends this boulder

over the ten thousand others

in the field, except that

someone else, as lost as you,

thought to pile some stones here.

The chaos that confronts you

will evolve into a pattern

that bigger things broke into.

The freedom measured by each fall:

No one knows where you are.

It’s easy to make a statement out of

stones piled up within arm’s reach:

Here I have been; harder to know

which of the piles you come upon

you should kick down.

-by Rick Kempa

Rick Kempa lives in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where he teaches writing and philosophy at Western Wyoming College. “Kicking Cairns” is featured in the Fall 2011 edition of Jackson Hole Review, www.jhreview.com.