Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 61 Three Stones- Obsidian, Amethyst, Blue Lace Agate

THREE STONES

These three short poems are based on three different gemstones. Starting with the stones by metaphor and comparison each one is extended to other areas of meaning. In some ways, I suppose, everything is connected to everything else in terms of meaning.

OBSIDIAN

in a dark glass

spots like grey moss

beautiful like art

but what the forge?

fire mountain

Pliny the elder

power and science

stopped by awful earth

pumice raining on Pompeii

onrush of the pyroclastic flow

enfolding flesh and leaving stone

forming casts for monuments

that no hand mocked

strange to think what lies beneath

all our lives we walk on fire

AMETHYST

Crystal, quartz-like, violet-tinged,

Draws the gaze into its clear-shaped,

Sharp-edged, peaking triangles-

Amethyst, a jewel in rock.

Distillation of dark colour,

Caught in crystal clarity,

Motionless as pure matter,

Sharp as light's geometry;

In that clear-cut crystal gleam

There lives something of the light;

In that cloudy, purple hue

There lives something of the night.

And in us there lives the light:

Bright awareness and clear seeing.

And in us there lives the night:

Dream and star and deep, deep being.

BLUE LACE AGATE

Jupiter has vastness.

So has Saturn with its rings.

Yet this small, polished stone,

this blue lace agate,

with white and blue

and bit of brown,

reminds me of another thing-

a photograph,

a blue-white jewel

in darkness

arising from the skyline on the moon.

Only here,

in all the sun-spun spheres,

fish swim in seas,

wind rustles leaves in trees,

and all the universe

is mirrored in

a child’s

dark-adapted eyes.

Only here

can dawn grow clear

to multitudes of minds,

to ears that hear

winged, singing voices.

Only here

we see this treasure

of life in all its complex measure,

upon this jewel amongst the stars,

upon this living, sun-drinking sphere

we we are born to learn of love

only here-

only here.