Sin, or Thoughts from a Gravel Road

Stones have spoke of

Judgement

for millennia.

I don’t mean the

little ones

you toss into the pond

to hear kerplunk,

hoping to startle a

toad to leap

mid-air.

Or those you’ll cram by

twos into your pocket,

competing with

your keys for

dandling touch,

as if feigning they

can open any door.

Stephen knew them well—jagged

asteroids—in the fists of righteousness;

the bill for blasphemy; levy for ever-loving

whom you will—

whether the Christ or

whether the Kevin who lives

next door when you’re a man.

An adulteress

was spared their jutting

wrath: Let he who is

without…

Intifada

started with a

clutch & skyward

fling. What is this peculiar 

liberation—from the palms of

shellshocked babes?

Everything’s a rock

that final day.

The boy in the

blue balloon? Will rise up

to his rapture—

once his stone

is finally heaved

out from his basket—

a sister plodding

barefoot

on the pebbles

far below, knowing the way

they pierce her soles

will sting forever,

bleed with her redemption,

thrush-like in her steps;

succumbing not to

potholes of the street, their lips

which crack a grin,

open like a maw

that’s set to gorge on

heel & wheel,

taunting hell’s

the toll for heaven,

the detour in

the detour

you thought you’d

somehow circumvent

when you were young,

when belts to

welt your flesh had

hung on hooks—superseding

hardhats from the

mine—limp like sagging

worms aloft the earth.

Andreas Gripp

June 10, 2026

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