Ode to a Stone on the Shore
By Joshua Morgan
One day,
Wandering, lost
Along the shore,
I saw you
A stone whiter than sun-bleached bone and as smooth as the crystal
Sky,
Floating in a sea of others.
Yet somehow,
You were different,
A gem,
Smoother and rounder,
Filled with a more
Ethereal
Energy
Than your rough and weary cousins.
Wavy lines of ancient sediment cover you,
A beautiful,
Mystic
Dance of ages,
An unkempt wave,
Weaving through space,
Leaping and swaying to
The rhythmic
In and out of the waves.
Filled with secrets to hold,
Witness to tales untold,
But your mouth
Is tightly shut,
Your eyes
Sewn closed,
Your ears
Clamped shut,
You
Are a heavy capsule of the knowledge of the ages.
My hand encloses you, ripping you away
From your tide-pool
Home.
Crash!
The ocean that caressed you shows its anger,
Shows that it was to hold
And harrow
You, wants you
To heed
Its secrets and dreams.
I can feel you quake,
But I won’t let it take you, not yet.
I peer
Into you
And will you to open yourself
And let me glimpse
Your stories, your secrets?
Yet predictably
You resist, like you have
For so long.
But still, eventually,
Your will gives way,
And I see,
I understand
That you have seen time erode and
Empires
Fall.
I finally see that you,
A simple stone,
Have outlived me by so many millennium.
You have existed
Since our sun was a newborn star,
Entrapped in the swirling
Arms
Of dust and gas,
Which would eventually become
You and me.