Stones, stacked or solitary, 

are the bones of our histories

breaking the swell of land 

as we wade through, reminding us

of something deeper than we see.

We can try to reassemble 

their scatterings, 

read the anatomy of origins

where we hauled ourselves up

from earth to light,

raised homes, defined ourselves

through boundaries, forged tools 

to delve and cultivate, 

carved our initials everywhere …

Helen Boyles Markmakers fragment