The Stone
Allison Miller
It was not so long ago.
On the eastern shore at moonrise,
listening like the beginning,
watching like starlight,
the child held a stone in her hands.
Darkly luminous, brilliantly somber,
the stone pulsed
and undulated with her touch.
Her thumb rubbed a pool into the stone,
a bright and severe depth.
From within, it surged
and contracted in an unearthly beat
that spanned starlives.
The girl shared the stone with others,
she let us hold the stone, feel
the promise of possibility,
the weight of trust.
We warmed the stone in our palms,
and the stone warmed us too,
each amazing pulse a subtle flame radiating.
The stone gave way to our touch,
began to twist, bend, flatten
as we adored, squeezed, and stroked it.
We saw in the shape of the stone
a use.
We carved into the twisted pillar,
chipped and sharpened the flattened disc.
The stone cut wood and scraped hides,
peeled logs and dug earth.
We used the stone to build a place.
This place, like the stone,
was shaped by others who loved it
before us.
Hands weathered by salt sea,
split and creaky as the backs
that generations stand upon, the hips
in which we were cradled.
Men told the old stories,
stitched the taut umiak,
threw the grappling hook and
taught their sons
the words and work,
passed down the sweat and breath of this place.
Women gave life triumph and ease,
birthed it then raised it
in homes feeding fires and mouths,
turned raw wildness to morals
of thrift and elegance,
passed down the warmth and grit of this place.
We remembered the child who found the stone.
We learned from
those who loved this place before us,
survived by sustaining tradition.
We’ve adapted to changes,
and exist as us
because we remember
the stories, the work, the lives
and the morals
that shaped and birthed
these hands and backs and wombs.
Stones were brought from other places,
found by other people,
shaped by other hands.
Glossy, transparent pebbles in uncountable colors
and specific shapes, they were so pretty and convenient.
They made work easier so we accomplished more
expected more
demanded more
lost less time.
But these pebbles held no heat or
swelling flow, no depth of hope
or heft of spirit.
The child’s stone was lost among the pebbles
of infinite clever uses.
And still the grown girl held the memory of the stone
warm and pulsing in her palm.
She spent the ripening years of her life
not nurturing new beginnings
but raking through cast-off relics and jetsam,
searching for the stone.
The old woman wept, saturated the soil.
As faded from memory as the stone.
Children leave footprints
in peaty clay,
indentations of arches between
toes that balance and heels that drive.
Tender progress,
intrepid wonder.
Plucking swamp lilies and lilting rhymes,
a boy is silenced by the discovery
of a humming ember lodged in mud.
With it folded within his deepest pocket,
the boy hurries to his shorecave hideaway,
tucking his treasure into a hollow
among double-ended feather
infinitive nautilus
inextinguishable indigo flame.
Even neap tides flood the cave;
blessed twice daily, anointed by
ocean bulge of moon, sun.
The stone burns through dormancy.
It won’t be long.
On the western peaks at sunset,
reaching like love,
remembering like awakening,
the cave will absorb the stone.
The particles of a crazed twilight will disperse
throughout the mountain, sending voltaic synapses
sparkling like spent fireworks.
Each ember lights a fuse
and a volcano erupts:
ash and forgotten spirit
persist in this molten womb.
