Stone
STONE
I spent my youth presenting as stone,
sure that protection from the violent vicissitudes
of the human condition lay in a geologic journey,
the only real threat the unlikely complications of
continental drift
Hence, I hadn’t allowed for magmatic rifting and
related events that easily turn stone into liquid
and fire, let you harden and rise, gracefully aging
in the capricious company of tectonic gymnastics
the unpredictable processes of water and ice,
of sunshine, warmth, the generation of life
She is seventy-two now with soft tummy fat, and
generous inclinations; I paint her toes when
she asks and offer when she doesn’t
Like the Adirondacks of New York, the circular
appendage to the Canadian Shield, I was a great
granite dome but the gradual journey to a softer,
worn condition, recklessly alive with intelligent life,
has been a beautiful thing – gray hair, great smiles,
sunlight and stone, the gentle topography of the
landscape of “we”!
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