Monday, June 28, 2004

To stones.

A stoon no thyng ne felith Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes v. 1805.; ca. 1412)

There a specular stone, there a corner-stone,
or coping-stone, they also say. Further down, a hoarstone,
marking, and a gravestone, in grief, caveats! bestowing.
From there yonder, the marriage sound between the wheth-
And the sleekstone. Around them all, the clashing of stonewares,
the throwing game stone clashing, the merry-making game of the
merry numbers wedding. The stones that lie within fruits, and the
hailstones that follow and fall. The loadstone may guide us, but the spell is cast by the sex-ridden flowers known as dogstones or foxstones.
In our bodies, one may avert the gallstone within, but there also others,
in pairs, that make men men and women belligerent. Respect them all,
I pray and pry in your not-as-free-as-you’d-like life, scolding you again
and caution to cast your first and not stumble upon the last.
We may be drunk, crazy, dead, cold, hard, mad and blind as one;
raw as the age that bears its name, and as animals not yet stone-cut,
but even being stone-eyed and stone-faced and stony-hearted, look and behold!,
and make out the stone that we are.

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