Simple Stone

April 29, 2009 at 12:58 am (Poetry)

 

A ruby of medium red

where some long ago dragon bled.

Imagine the fight:

The dragon slung his head

and there,

each precious drop from him,

became jewelry; a blood red gem.

 

Or an oval of medium blue:

a sapphire, from a witch’s brew.

She stole a piece of the sky

leaving a hole that we decry.

 

Like water solidified into stone, a diamond

A crystal boldly imagined itself beyond ice:

 a wonder, a pebble, a promise,

        A simple symbol,

 a woman’s bright future on a young girl’s hand.

 

Of them all, my love, an oval of opal,

Disneyland in a ring. A lovely fairytale in solidified glitter:

     “Once upon a time, this rock was shed in fairy dust

when bees hummed bass as fairies sang until the magic gummed together

into a stone, the song saved for all time, now worn on someone’s hand.

When we invent the iPod to play these rock songs

there will no longer be wars, no longer be hunger or sadness.

gemstones are magic, you see.”

 

Like granite

Buildings that last forever.

Marble

Where philosophers or senators raised their hands,

hard to imagine these buildings still stand…

      “Friends, Romans, Countrymen…” their sandals upon stone.

The words somehow forever recorded there, perhaps,

If we could find the needle intricate enough to make these stones speak.

 

A rock, a simple thing,

but yet a playground for silly minds

who would make up stories,

with and without rhymes,

or spend fortunes to decorate

their hands and necks

with stones of blue, of green, or of fairy specks.

 

© 2009 C. Harter Amos