This is another of the poems I'm currently working on. But I've been struggling. I first wrote this poem in free verse, and the durn thing keeps turning toward rhymed verse. What's a poet to do? I'm listening to the rocks.
I think this is the third poem this week about rocks. Maybe if I push it, there might be a collection here called POETRY ROCK! (Sorry, I couldn't help myself keep from punning.)
Stone Woman/Rock House
Each day on her morning walks
the woman would pick up rocks.
Then she'd take them home,
and caress each precious stone.
At first, she'd place them
in bowls for friends to play
when the bowls began to fill
she moved to the window sill.
She'd place the stones
in groups of two or four
hoping they'd be comfortable
until she could bring even more.
She'd hold them and turn them,
she'd dust and water them.
She placed the rocks in neat little rows
or clustered like an English garden grows
trying to coax them into bloom.
She'd sing to the rocks,
she'd jabber and croon.
She cracked one open
and saw the moon,
and light like stars
sparkled inside.
Each little stone
was her special pride.
She worried the rocks
until the day
when one of the stones
finally said, “Stop.”
He was a sage of a rock,
who started this tale,
“Never has there been a man,
or animals, fish or bird
insect or reptile—no one never--
that hasn't been touched
by a rock.!”
So the woman stopped
what she had to do
and sat to listen to
all the rock had to tell.
He told stories from
the beginning of time
when rocks came together
to make the earth sublime.
Of fruit and flowers
and whiling away hours
from dinosaurs to Indians,
and trains crossing plains,
of farmers and wars
and hurricanes.
The woman grew old
listening to stones
and when she died
she wasn't alone.
The rocks all giggled
feeling her mirth
they rolled to cover
the woman in earth.
