Go inside a stone
That would be my way
.Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.
From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.
I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere,
as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls
2 comments:
A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner.
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the rest of his life.
His mother asked why.
He said, because it's held captive, because it is captured.
Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know whether it's in a garden or not.
Eternity and the stone
are mother and daughter;
it is you who are getting old.
The stone is only sleeping.
But I caught it, mother, it is mine by conquest, he said.
A stone is nobody's, not even its own. It is you who are conquered; you are minding the prisoner, which is yourself,because you are afraid to go out, she said.
Yes yes, I am afraid, because you have never loved me, he said.
Which is true, because you have always been to me as the stone is to you, she said.
Great work.
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