China

Rock-Skipping on the West Fork

Semis grind to make the grade

behind us on the hill;

otherwise the summer stream

is somnolent and still.

Already, son, your arm is strong,

your aim as straight as mine,

even though I’m thirty-eight

and you are only nine.

Someday, when you’re thirty eight

and I am sixty-seven,

I hope that we can come back here

like truants under heaven

to skip the stones that weighed us down

in years less kind than these,

and watch them clear the opposite shore

and vanish into the trees.