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By Stephen Sandy b. 1934 Stephen Sandy

No one knew what the stones like squatting frogs

signified. There they were, fuming in rows, out

of the ground; every critic had his explanation

or hers. But—we had to remember—they

came to nothing, every one; those large stones

out of the earth served the systems

of those who considered them, as explaining

something about the past it was important

for the explainer to explain. And yet

no one had any idea truly; there was no

basis in fact for any view of them, and

they remained like their origins—or like

smiling Olmec babies, sweet but ominous figures

come from the earth to reproach us, almost

cheerfully, for our ignorance—a mystery, just

as the probe of our feelings came up with nothing.

Source: Black Box (Louisiana State University Press, 1999)

Biography

Stephen Sandy studied poetry with Robert Lowell and Archibald MacLeish, earned a PhD from Harvard University, and traveled to Japan on a Fulbright Visiting Lectureship. He is the author of more than a half dozen collections of poetry and has been honored with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vermont Council on the Arts, and the Ingram Merrill Foundation.

Stephen Sandy’s collections include Riding to . . .

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