You Can't Plow Stone

The plow point starts the furrow,
keeps it turning, rolls it
off the moldboard, buries
stalks and grasses from last year’s crop.
Now to begin again, earth worked over,
entered by new seeds, to risk weather,
bugs, weeds. Birds make a big to-do
in the furrows, flock behind the plow,
busy with worms.
The blade cuts through everything,
nothing is spared, a bed of violets,
some day lilies, thistle patches,
horse-radish roots, even a woodchuck den
is plowed under.
But wait . . .
that big rock there, it stands pat,
it has been bumped before,
see the scars, it won’t give . . .
let’s praise it for a show of resistance,
strength for endurance.