The thereness of stones exceeds that of other things.
Perhaps because they are still and silent,
and, except for pumice,
weight-drawn to their place beyond mere inertia.
Unmoving and intact; themselves
much more than moving, breathing creatures are.
Did the impossible pressure and unbearable heat
of mostly their making give them this endurance?

I keep a bowl of them against my restless exile:
grey memories of several homes, until I pour water
over their quiet magnificence,
more fastidious now than when I found them
beside a dusty river and licked to see their
splendour or popped right in to suck away persistent patches,
tasted the iron like blood in the mud.

Spat out again, the stones would lie
blinking in the sun, like sleepy cats disturbed:
the whorls of agates, the gleaming of garnet,
rich black-red drops, and pure white quartz,
all glowed like Aladdin’s cave
in the palm of my hand, as
feet fell asleep
in the heat and thorns,
squatting still so long.

Later polarized light microscopy revealed
the blazing silence of a secret funfair
even deeper in the granite heart,
which noisy words scold cold for lack
of sense to know with naked eyes
the unspoken bright spectrum
in these grey anchors of our gravity.