Well, it’s not like I post poetry every Friday. But still and yet, here’s a poem for your Friday. From me to you. Enjoy. I bring it back from Deception Pass. We spent last weekend there. Three days with no clock, no schedule, no washing machine. Just the light. And the birds, the rocks, the water, the rain, and the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

Rocks Talk

The stones have faded away from the beach

no water to infuse them with deeper tones

but still, I remember.

I feel their cool exterior

place myself there

no clock

nowhere to be

except searching

wondering what rocks would hold up

which ones to carry home

as reminder of the birds

swooping again and again

not flying for me

but still gifts too numerous to tally

and why I line many pockets

with weighty objects

shot through with lines of color:

green, red, cocoa brown, copper-tainted orange

maroon and that white, that misnomer

made up of every shade,

the only stone that still stands up straight:

the white one.

The rest take more patient looking

the kind of glance I forget to practice

until I notice so many stones

like alters throughout my house

calling, Get up, get up, leave through the front door

until you feel the light seeping

through your forehead into your body

sunlit or grey-shaded, no matter,

the world waits for you to remember

it’s glory

so different than the blue-tones shades of this screen

you type on now.

Leave before it’s too late

to whisper to yourself

that what lasts isn’t you

it’s the tree, the rock, the bird

the conversation you place upon the wind

no words necessary.

-Nancy Schatz Alton