I will not say
who stole rocks from each
state she visited, only to
place them in a garden or path
where their significance or
location of origin were
forgotten surely as the vitamin
pill you swallowed
eagerly with your cornflakes
this morning. It was not
as if she knowingly was
disrupting the oldest chess
match known only
to geology itself, each pilfered
stone a pawn or knight
or king plucked
from his square of time
and space—science has discovered
recently that future events
influence the past—stones
my friend will place in her path
of irises long ago and farther
back still where
she is joyful and warbles and thrives.