Shape Meaning & Memory
SHAPE
It’s a rock.
Just a rock.
An oblate spheroid
Of unremarkable colour.
Tiny shards of quartz
Wink at me in the summer sun.
Grains of sand still cling and
Tiny creatures scurry from the cavity
Where this rock once sat.
If I turn it just so,
It fits neatly in the palm of my hand
And slips neatly in my pocket.
The air is steamer-hot
And sauna-damp
And devilish clouds of gnats
Form a halo before my eyes.
It is rough to the touch,
All softness and weakness scrubbed away
Leaving pitted surfaces in its wake.
It is old, perhaps ancient, or even more.
It has seen the monstrous reptiles rise
And bow to their successors.
All the ages are revealed in this,
A book to be read for those
Who stumble upon it
And pause.
MEANING
Was I fated to meet this stone?
My entire life has lead me here,
All the while questioning free will.
Yet a random butterfly effect
Might have intervened
And erased this moment forever.
This stone, heavy for its size,
Speaks of titanic forces
That bubbled and surged from below
To envelop a creature
Unaware, or long dead,
A calcium carbonate monument
That predates life’s first stirring.
Encasing, enrobing, encircling,
Containing the ghostly whorls
Of a creature, thus immortalized,
Wrapped like a tightly bound rose
Waiting patiently for millennia
To fall under my gaze.
A fossil?
So old to be so worn and cratered
Born of some volcanic flow
And this is what remains.
To think that I am subject to such forces
Is a humbling notion.
One surface stares up at me.
I am forced to ask,
“Am I the first to ever touch this thing?
Has it lain in wait with infinite patience
For just this moment?
And why was I so blessed?”
Does this chance connection to the past
Bestow a portion of its near-immortality
To me?
I hold it I my hand
And time slips away.
Kismet.
MEMORY
The imprint of that stone in my hand
Is still with me.
Don’t know where I found it.
Don’t know when.
But I guess it is mine for the duration.
It links me to a past I cannot imagine
And to a future I will never see.
It calls to mind the great and the small,
Beginnings and endings.
I think of family and generations.
I think of endurance and continuity.
I think of Alpha and Omega.
The imprint of that stone will stay in my hand
Until both it and I are no more.
Palimpsest 
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