Rocks Are Immutable by Michael Roberts

ROCKS ARE IMMUTABLE

Rocks are immutable and hold No scope for self-aggrandizement, Each well-worn pebble churned and rolled Suffers a like predicament.

Gripped in what mesh of causal schemes Endures each casual atom what When one perchanced electron screams A stuttering signal, and is not?

Grant then a gamete, grant a score By crabbed environment beset, And man the instrument, no more, And where’s the credit? Where the debt?

Or grant pure chaos, flickering chance, And life’s defection near and soon, Then mark the shock of circumstance, The day from solid darkness hewn — Rock is a shivering miracle, Betrayed in sunlight, gleaming wet, And love cries out in chlorophyll To welcome truth in petals yet!

— From These Our Matins (1930) by Michael Roberts.