The Inertia of Permanence We stared slack-jawed at the solitary rock lying in a newly excavated hole, cruelly exposed to icy spring winds after eons of undisturbed solitude. Backhoe, pneumatic jack hammer, mild expletives, worse had proved powerless against its dogged desire to remain in this particular loamy cradle carved by the last retreating glaciers. We could have blasted its ancient essence into a jagged pile of detritus to be crushed and ground into a million motes of indistinguishable dust. Instead, we surrendered to the inertia of permanence, inviting it to share our future abode, fully aware that its residency will long outlast our own earthly speck of time. previously published in The Carlisle Mosquito