Round 2

Well, I survived the first round of trying to order the poems in my manuscript, and have moved on to round 2, accompanied by a ton of editing and attention to titchy little details. (Dictionary.com is trying to tell me titchy is not a word. That's ridiculous.) Round 2, I'm glad to report, was significantly less painful than round 1.

Here's the poem for today; I wrote this while studying archaeology in Ireland, about 10 years ago.

Tongue of Stone

yes and even bones decay in this earth,
dissolve in patient soil, below immense
megaliths, unyielding: portals, the key lost,
tongue held. we dig under stone bellies,
two clay beads, a gold torc, a cup, a pot. we smell
soft fragments of bone, unearthed. but our tongues
seek songs, and we beg the stones for sheet music.
six thousand years ago we wrote it ourselves
with ripped and callused hands, hands weary of silence.
we faced our tombs west, to daily drink the sunset. northeast
for the sunrise. we covered the threshold in white quartz
and it blazed a holy fire in the sun. then one by one
we sealed them off, walked away with a lullaby.
place your hand on the stone. feel it breathe.
learn to listen like stone. step lightly as you circle;
try to remember, seeing from all sides but one.

the stone laughs. poor humans – do you not
cry yourselves to sleep, eradicable as you are?
walk on , two-legger. someday you too shall curl
beneath me, cradled in my womb, waiting
as I wait. time will find you searching darkly
for the passage, the slow birth of death. learn
to wait. one day I shall light the torches for you,
mark the path leading deep to our mother’s womb.
there lie the questions you’ve forgotten how to ask.
and when eons from now your children beg me for answers
I shall sing to them
how you thought; what you loved; your forgotten name;
yes and even as your bones decay below me.