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Erratics and Kettle Holes

Erratics, they’re called, huge rocks

some eight feet tall and fifteen feet wide,

a dozen smaller line the shore, left

by the last glacier, now picturesque

points of interest on the flat beach,

like special occasions, a place to pause,

even rest and look around, a marker

of how far along the beach we’ve walked

something to look back on with fondness

or even longing.

The same glacier left large dimples

in the earth, kettle holes,

fifty yards across and as deep,

buried blocks of ice that melted

leaving indentations

in our landscape, too steep

to easily descend, like pockets

of our lives too hard to enter, holes

in our history filled with debris,

layers of new growth attempting

to cover them over, like trees filling this hole.

We can only walk around them,

wonder how they happened,

and meander on, grateful

we did not fall in.