Veins

Rivers run
clock-wise
gathered seconds from
Hidden Springs
one way
gaining distance in
Time and Space
accommodates
this swelling of our souls,

after so many miles
consumed and minerals made
we carry all these
these accumulations
around
the middle
counter-clockwise

where all the numbered faces
count
on the moon
to turn cheek
and the Rivers rise
with mouths
full of asteroids.



Painting by Gertrud Staats, dated before 1938 in Public domain.

Stone's throw

When the words dislodged
and came hailing down,
as an avalanche seeking the comforting
earth below
in free fall, the lege, a paragraph
or precipice gives itself away,

all the dense granite words,
could never be shale, not fall apart
nor could any illumination find light
after the full weight suddenly shifted,
to be mined. It was only words that the
mountains rose to meet at
The End.




Painting by Carl Schuch [Public domain], 'Mountain stream with boulders' (c.1888) via Wikimedia Commons.

Norwegian Matte

The eldest sister of my Grandmothers' siblings
told me,
They would take rocks
from atop the wood burning stove in the kitchen
and carry them to school,
clutching these in their pockets as they walked.

Sometimes they would stay warm all day,
if you knew where to hide them
for later.

They did this every winter.
The walk in the snow to school
was not an ascent.
It was a privilege to go to school,
she often said.

She also said she pined for a pony,
and being first born-
she believed anything was possible.
She got a goat. She named it Eddie.
Eddie followed her to school.

She taught him math,
addition and subtraction,
and some simpler sentences.
Four was his favorite number.

Being the first (and last) born
from the middle sisters' daughter,
I understood her silly stories
greater than
the rest.
I remember
I saw no difference
between the rocks and the goat.

A smooth rock sitting in the sun
is not safe from my fingers or pocket,
by relation
I am compelled to carry the heavy load,
alone.
The slag added up
to more than four pockets could carry.





Painting by János Tornyai [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Rockhound

What solidified as sedimentary and fragmented by boundaries for lines,

like this and that, then they become--attracted and hot, like activated napalm of Now,

or ancient as molten eruption of self from a grave state and under constant pressure.

Metamorphic under microscope where hopes and isotopes concentrate on concealment

(not ellipse) and atoms abound around encompassing this multi-verse.

Unrehearsed we feel the way around--properties, grasp at solids

to state stability, states of now and later. Conserved and dispersed by magnets

in ideal zero-balance equations, also known as inertia.

Glints are all hints from the sun and moon who toss phosphorous

photons at us and get enmeshed in metal, protruding these signal finds and keeps,

Enlightenment.

Those glimmers sent millions of light years have been,

once upon a time, moving, one of us,

waiting to be seen.

Disturbed in our bio-luminescence, we became

cloaked and blinded by our life-lights. 

Top image of first known lunar meteorite, Allan Hills  81005.
2nd image credit By Daderot (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons, residing @ ASU Center for Meteorite Studies. 

Water rocks

It is that time

and I feel us

spinning in nearer

the Aquariids,

perhaps none will

notice this but me

but I get vertigo,

and have learned

to plan accordingly

I wait outside under

grape skies with an

empty cup,

one thinks of sparks

and electricity often

aquaeous,

currently this is the rush

I feel, dangerous

for some of us

passing down waterfalls

and fixating

on a spot

to the sea of tranquility

stars stay

just out of reach.

 Image credit By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

An Ode to Ge (Geode)

Just a rock
not smooth but rough
around the non edges of
its intrinsic spheric
nature, structure.

No pebble-but a rock-
that can be concealed in a fist,
hiding inside;
taunting in the turtles way,
tucking, sucking inside
its plated prehistoric shell.

But you can feel this fragment
disintegrate, perish and dissolve;
volcanic cryptocrystalline quartz,
sprinkling its sedimentary exterior
unsentimentaly and silty in my hand.

A rock is a terrestrial fragment made from
dust and sand, compressed and forged,
carrying and holding its inert unstable state,
and insignificant weight,
posing inanimate and dormant.

Lightly, lacking meat in the middle
empty unlike the turtle, hollow,
wallowing in carbonate bubbles.

Listen-inside
as agate bands,
jasper whispers,
and amethysts get kissed...
Stacking up of crystal spears
on corroding foundations;
earth from the inside out.

This little lava rock
life forgets, brushes aside
unless something special is hiding
inside. We, tools, crack
down the middle
to see the little
beauty, chaos, surprise
Lies
inside
a lone little
living stone.



Image from Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain. Pictured interior of amethyst geode.

A Pinnacle of Stony Tries

A Pinnacle of Stony Tries

The mountain started it.

Imposing its challenge

upon sky and sea.

I must accept it.

I am compelled to conquer.

I've become drawn to touching,

sharing senses,

exchanging skin.

Stoicism is a rock.

Yeah, right.

Both are metonyms,

found in caverns up high,

like oxymoronic holes in the sky.

Spelunking down the spyglass,

on stalagmite stairs;

pointing the way

in collected columns,

that climb

like us.

Rocks feel pressure,

cave in and crumble;

like grains of time,

an avalanche of life,

too much for itself

to hold it together.

Ascending I dare to grapple,

with textures and temperatures,

gradients by degrees

of warmth rest

in the velvet granite

flesh, accepting,

caressing sand paper cheeks

I trust the friction.

Finding my weight

propped against the mass,

I hold the balance.

The weight erodes, sloughed

in pebbles of problems;

raining by rocks in applause,

anticipating their early release,

from master sculptor,

whose has been a model prisoner,

Medusa obeying and repelling.

A climb is not a race.

A scale includes the middle march;

all possible paths, knobs,

and steps fossilize.

Planning each step,

I am pulled up by my own

labored breath,

my stomach in knots secure my spot.

I am too heavy on myself.

Yet,

the higher I get,

the further away,

I like to stay

because now I can see

all that I've known,

becoming strange, deranged.

I strain to focus on all that is,

and it clearly became,

miniature and small.

It is meaningless,

without this fight

to keep holding on,

even if I never make it

to the top

and Fall,

forgetting

all about

looking back

down

at the waiting world,

I found my wings

while giving up.

Image By George Edward Mannering [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo of Emmeline Freda du Faur (1862-1974) first female mountaineer in New Zealand.