Harvest of Stones

Twilight draped its golden rays
over the garden spotted with crusts of snow
in winter's endless waning days,
across wet chaos snagging the laggard toe,
that told of time not passing me by
an eternity lurked before the dark
I was astounded by the clarity of sky
where a star appeared as a glowing spark.


And so a lively path was beaten to the shed
through crisp atmosphere with stalwart bones
to get the pick, to spite the dead
who shirked the chore to harvest stones,
when there was time under the fading sun
with the twilight belying the passage of years,
tickling skeletal trees, the universe on the run,
the gravitational destiny of alien spheres.


I grasped the handle of the massive tool
fit for the railroad crew to heft,
tread in the hurried gait as was the rule
among workers not looking right or left
but at stony ground in a constant trance
bent to tasks at the crack of a whip
but here it was I who chose to dance
in the twilight, in its fickle grip.


Urgency seized my tentative soul
and I swung the pick to rend the soil,
heavy steel struck rock, the droll
game was on to fiercely uncoil
yet another blow and satiate the lust
to grasp at stones and raise the pile
as darkness closed in with a sudden gust
of wind jarring sneer into an evil smile.


There it was, a meager pile gleaned,
it had to be higher to call it a night,
so I swung the pick obsessed as a fiend,
grasping stones in waning light,
flinging stones and grasping more
among thousands in a planetarium of stones,
the frantic digging could not end the chore,
that lived in the marrow of my bones.


The labor went on with desperate haste
to purge the soil of a demon's salt
an exorcism did battle for a soul not graced
'til a job is done without laying blame or fault
for the way the universe shook out;
the pick flew in the heat of the ordeal,
a bar was crossed in the dark with a shout,
"Enough!" and I set down the steel.





























Poetry by Peter J. Kautsky
Read 888 times
Written on 2013-03-29 at 20:26

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Hmm. This is definitely puzzling. Whether the stones are metaphors or not, I can't tell. Something is going on here that I can't see. The atmosphere is vivid, though, no trouble seeing it all, except for the reason.
2013-03-30


Commentally Ill
you harvest stones, i'll harvest watermelon (i think they taste far better)
2013-03-30