Ars poetica

Beneath our garden gnome, I strike an immutable

stone.  I brush it against my overalls and palm

its heft.  Compacted and hardened in its earthen kiln,

this bond of shells and silts settled on an alluvial plain.

I clamp my stone in the maw of a vise and rasp a file

against its antiquity.  With a carbide chisel, I scrape

the ridges and moil fine sandpaper over its surface 

until it feels as smooth as an oiled pan.  Wings fold 

inside, fins and flanks buckle composed, ossuary

in a sealed vault.  Silica glints immemorial.

Again, I palm its bunched body and bathe its

ambiguity in ambient light.  My stone’s silence

disguises an illimitable past, crucible of blood,

bone, and ash.  From my hand a wilderness 

howls, shadows find sanctuary, and time sways

like a conductor’s baton.  Humble, the hard obscurities

breathe like a lover dreaming through the day.

I pour sand into a canning jar and add water.

I shake and shake and spill my stone onto a white 

linen towel, gift of a child waking in the sun’s glare.

As I lift my stone to my cheek, its simple innocence

wrenches my heart.  Nothing endures,

yet in this solid shape flights of geese trumpet,

honeysuckle blossoms drip bees, starlight salts

the seas, antlers clash at glacier’s end,

whirlwinds stir sandy shores, and mists 

immemorial cover wisteria-wrapped eaves.