Nothing Does Not Belong Here

Scattered bits of red sandstone
No larger than fists
Look like baked bricks in the duff

And lacy old snow below
The shadowing piñon pines.
The voices have stopped.

The truck of the picnickers
Has left for further
Recreational travels.

The sweet air feels swept again.
But those sandstone bricks,
They’re so damned evocative

Of ruins, crumbled houses,
And what foolishness it is
To shush that thought with the words

“No, those stones are natural.
Nothing has been ruined here.”