Outdoor Rocks

A thoughtful activity for Memorial Day:
go on a nature walk or to the cemetery, find some rocks,
and assemble a cairn, like this impressive stack of stones,
gathered and balanced in our neighbor's backyard.

More cairns on my blog.
Also called ebenezers.

The Cairn

When I think of the little children learning
In all the schools of the world,
Learning in Danish, learning in Japanese
That two and two are four, and where the rivers of the world
Rise, and the names of the mountains and the principal cities,
My heart breaks.
Come up, children! Toss your little stones gaily
On the great cairn of Knowledge!
(Where lies what Euclid knew, a little grey stone,
What Plato, what Pascal, what Galileo:
Little grey stones, little grey stones on a cairn.)
Tell me, what is the name of the highest mountain?
Name me a crater of fire! a peak of snow!
Name me the mountains on the moon!
But the name of the mountain that you climb all day,
Ask not your teacher that.

by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)
More poems: QK & FN & KL

Another fun & mystical idea:
Design a Stone Cat!

In contrast to Outdoor Rocks,
check out my recent Fortnightly Blog:

Indoor Rocks

Ellie & Aidan's treasure stash
(one of many)
containing numerous indoor rocks.