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Magazine Special Section

Haibun

By Andrew Schelling

Winter 1999

Rock is naturalist scripture. The deeper you go the older the story. Pikas & squirrels scamper over the top, then spiral descent from gone tooth & twig. Petrified bone sediment myth. Or psychic fossil? Horesetail & algae glow green again, come to life in car engines. Fantastic shapes, old as forests. And now the likelihood we have in the world as many diverse minds…”as there are organisms capable of perception.”

Evolution’s basic

job-turning rock

to green growth.

Andrew Schelling is a poet and translator. He recently edited Love and the Turning Seasons: India’s Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing, and has a volume of poems from Bhartrihari (ca. 7th century) forthcoming from Shambhala Publications. He teaches at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.