Stone Alive
Deep
in the night-colored morning,
far from your
gravitational pull, your need,
your wailing hustle that
flickers like sleet,
I dream
the lives of stone,
the green
absolute monotony
of warmth.
I drift
in the memory of
their breath,
alive among the
sleeping.
October 2021
posted for Quadrille #137
at dVerse Poets
Images: Stones, © Ivan Shishkin Public Domain
Colonial Graveyard at Lexington, 1891 © Childe Hassam Public Domain
I love this... to me the focus on the warmth of stone reads like a memory of basking in sun. It is amazing how soft and warm a stone can be.
ReplyDeleteoh MY! Trifle, my aunt minnie. This is like a quick powerful punch and also a song of survival and, in its way, far more than just that. I love the "gravitational pull, the absolute monotony, and the killer ending. In short, I love this, Joy.
ReplyDeleteI love how warm you painted this, the sound of wailing hustle, and breath of sleeping.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see you!!!
Love love loving this, especially:
ReplyDelete"I dream
the lives of stone,
the green
absolute monotony
of warmth."
Sigh. Me, too.
i love your colorful stones of life and dreams. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThis almost has the feel of dissociation, where one escapes without notice, to that warm, quiet strength. Beautiful poem, Joy.
ReplyDeleteI dream the lives of stone - this reminds me of when I am in a cemetery reading the names and I wonder who they were and what their lives might have been like. Sometimes, I gravitate towards certain stones as if they are calling from the great beyond.
ReplyDeleteSuch a beautiful and enchantingly crafted quadrille!
ReplyDeletethe green / absolute monotony / of warmth
ReplyDeleteyou're a magician - a witch, as it were - to turn a superlative into litotes. or, of course, a poet ~
Timeless memories...
ReplyDeleteSuch beautiful imagery of those warm, breathing stones (and the longing to escape to them).
ReplyDelete"the green
ReplyDeleteabsolute monotony
of warmth."
These lines (and that entire stanza, really) will be with me for a long time, HW. Well, well written!
-David [ben Alexander]
I read this as a search for peace - the images and the graveyard, the heavy embrace of sleep. I love it.
ReplyDeleteAlways the unexpected. That's what l luv about visiting your poetry
ReplyDeleteMuch💜love