All In One Stone (#145)
Stone Bird
I remember you. You’re the one
who lifted your ancient bones
of fossil rock, pulled yourself free
of the strata like a plaster figure
rising from its own mold, became
flesh and feather, took wing,
arrested the sky.
You’re the one who, though marble,
floated as beautifully as a white
blossom on the pond all summer,
who, though skeletal and particled
like winter, glimmered as solid as a bird
of cut crystal in the icy trees.
You are redbird—sandstone
wings and agate eyes—at dusk.
You are greybird—polished granite
and pearl eyes—just before dawn,
midnight bird with a reflective
vacancy of heart like a mirror
of pure obsidian.
You’re the one who flew down
to that river from the heavens,
as if your form alone were the only
holy message needed. You were alabaster
then in the noonday sun.
Once I saw you rise without rising
from your prison pedestal
in the garden beneath the lime tree.
At that moment your ghost
in its haunting permeated every
regality of the forest with light,
reigned with disdain in thin air
above the mountain, sank in union
with the crosswinds of the sea.
I remember you. You’re the one
who entered in through my death
as if it were an open window
and you were the sound of the serenade
being sung outside for me, the words
of which, I know now, are of freedom
cast in stone forever.
Pattiann Rogers. From Firekeeper: Selected Poems (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2005). Copyright © 2005 by Pattiann Rogers
Number 145 in the continuous series "All In One Stone"
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When the water has receded, many big stones show up!! Were these stines there by the pond naturally?!
These stones were from the mountain nearby?!
No, the pond is man-made. The stones were bought at a garden center. Pure nature ;-)
We have no mountains in The Netherlands. The highest point is 322,40 meters :'-)
That’s very interesting! You could get big chunks of mountain stones in gardening center! These must have been quite costly! But you have the energy of the mountain in your garden.
Isn't the whole idea of creating pseudo nature in your garden very interesting in itself?
We spend effort, time and money on turning domesticated pieces of land into what we consider to be 'real nature', all within the confinement of human comfort, of course :-D
Nature is not ‘real’ as being static! We are also part of nature and we change all the time!
It’s dynamic and forever changing! Including our thoughts!
Xctl!
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