And Another One

Take a sprawl of basalt cobbles
Tumbling down a sandstone cliff-wall,
Some of them as big as cabins—

How is this one different from that?
Every one’s a polyhedron
Cleaved from the same cooling lava

That oozed out and over the land
Like a single thing, one stone wave,
Until it cooled enough to break,

Thousands of years ago. Now, brush
And junipers anchor themselves
On these lichen-speckled cobbles.

How does change breed so much sameness?
How is one stone different from this?