I Heart Rocks

Flat stones that fit between thumb and pointer, and

when released at the right time and angle,

skip across the surface.

Searching for the perfect specimen is maddening.

But oh, the satisfaction when it’s found.

Spheres tumbled by the fierce Atlantic,

warm and salty on my son’s tongue.

Strewn on the sand with sea glass and plastic rope and a single tampon applicator.

They connect land and sea, and

prove time and rough seas create beauty.

A black dragon’s spine surfacing in the desert.

The remnant of prehistoric heat, and

gas and pressure from the bowels below.

I thought of stopping; of taking a side road

to introduce my sleeping passengers to the sleeping giant.

But it was 114 degrees, and we were not acclimated.

Piled just offshore and black, framed by the sunset.

Do young people even know what cut hay looked like,

before the balers and the twine and the tractors came along?

Do the birds nesting on them know they have a name at all?

Glassy quartz pushes into the sunlight on the ground

where sod won’t grow, and

dirt erodes a little more with every thunderstorm.

I waited for the bus, digging for witchy diamonds on the corner of

Northedge Road and Coachlight Drive.

Copyright 2019 – Laurie Marshall

This poem is being posted as part of the #100dayproject. Find out more here.