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Rock
Spetsiot
by Janice Siegel
Lazy waves touch the shore
unaware of the drama unfolding,
heedless of all the children lying there
moist and shiny on the crest of the shoal
sucking and gulping their mother's milk,
a tantalid feast, too soon out of their grasp.
They attempt to follow the swell
as it recedes from the shore
back home, to safety.
But slowly they die, these minions of the sea.
As polished-edged eggs on the
sea-floor
they dance in their place, their veins pulse to the flow.
From under this billowing quicksilver canopy
they wink at the world and glimmer and quiver
dappled with sunlight, breeze-rippled shadows,
jade green, russet, pumpkin and ivory,
as many colors as stones.
Once exiled from these life-giving waters
paler than death they lie sun-bleached and alien
dried-out old bones, all of one colorless hue,
abandoned, forsaken,
tossed up on shore by an unfeeling parent.
At life's end they are graceless, enjoying no more,
kicked from behind by the currents of time.
A boy and his sister in search of
a game
select the best of the breed for their innocent play
and idly watch the stones skip 'cross the water
enlivened at last by the touch of the sea.
Their mother opens her body, embraces, engulfs
and swallows her children, reuniting her family.
In her watery bosom the stones becomes pink, silver, red
and cartwheel and dance with the joy of awakening
wondrous rebirth, delight to discover.
But the boy and girl pass on,
unaware of their gift. |
