Something

. . . about a stone, found along an unkempt path. Something about the striations of gray and white. Something about the path, unattended for more than a decade. Something about the lightning-felled tree. Something about the moss on the tree. Something about winter, and the new moon.

The stone is smoothed by wind and rain. I hold it in my hand and feel the weight of forgotten mountains. I perceive the ocean. I hear the waters rise and fall. I feel the mammoth's delicate tread. The stone knows more than I.

The stone now lies in the bottom of a double-wall basket. The reeds come all the way from China. The stone remembers the Cherokee women who originally wove this type of basket. The stone ponders, but does not compare.

There is something about a stone's wisdom which causes the clouds to part.