Ripple Rock

This is where my mind wanders, 
Behind this desk, bathed in soft 
Monitor light. This is where 
I levitate, oscillate, and glide 
On five plastic wheels, a pneumatic column,
Lumbar support and everything. 
This is where I pour yesterday’s lukewarm
Water bottle on my mother-in-law’s tongue.
This is where I push buttons 
And pile up symbols and consider
The crust of the earth. 
This is where my mind 
Wanders: How it is thin, 
Not a walnut shell or even a cantaloupe rind
But an apple peel, 
Three to five miles thick under 
Oceans, continents, under twenty-five,
Thin and pregnant and implacable,
Always sending up new mountains,
Earthquakes and volcanoes, 
Always pulling high places down. 
This is where I concentrate. 
Maybe I’m reading something 
Or taking a call. I reach 
For the rock on the edge 
Of my desk, deep red, 
The size of a cheap paperback, 
Something I picked up last summer
Hiking a shale bowl with my head down,
A bucktoothed puzzle piece, a million
Particles of dust that came to rest
On the floor of an ancient sea. 
My hand runs over the ripples 
And shallow waves pull me back.