Reading John Cage on Sound

Rocks by Sarah Webb


John Cage says, sound doesn’t have to
mean anything. 

I say, a rock
may be heavy in the hand
may grit against the fingers.
We don’t have to write on it Stone

though I have a stack of four
on my railing for just that purpose–
to write stone in black ink on the flatter side
to write a haiku about time compressed into layers
to tell the rock to be archetype, meaning

but maybe it’s enough just to be rock
and maybe that’s why 
the rocks in that stack have sat
through ten summers of heat and rain and the step of doves
and I’ve never written on any of them.


—Sarah Webb

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