Stone Soup

Where young artists paint the world with words

The international magazine of stories, poems, and art by young writers and artists. Published continuously since 1973.

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Continental Divide

A strip of gray, perforated by yellow lines, cutting through the grasses, trees, rocks.
It appeals to me,
The surveying, engineering, construction,
All to conquer this one point of the barrier
Between oceans, watersheds, counties, states.
The peak of the path,
Barrier of waters,
Somehow excites me.
Is it truly my cartographic desire
Or just a mind wandering?
Or crossing the line between Atlantic and Pacific,
Or just of finding a thought to dwell on?

Woody Szydlik
Woody Szydlik, 12
San Francisco, CA