ManicDDaily

Ode to a Rock (on a Bedside Table)

You’re heavier than
your grey,
and so rounded
you’d pass for a stone
if rolled some way.

And I (meaning me)
could use you, my husband says one night,
to throw at the forehead of
a gunman, knock
him out.

This casts you
in a somewhat different light–
no longer an oversized bite
of forest floor, something to hold open
a door,
but a possible means of deliverance
like the rock rolled away
from the tomb.
Only not.

For I’m not sure gunmen are swayed
by rocks, certainly not rocks
of faith, ages–

Hard to understand
even when your heft
weighs down my hand
that you will outlast its flesh–
that all our individual flash
will transmute to dust, ash,
while the wind still feeds on you–

So, life seems to pass faster
than a speeding bullet for some,
while for others, it is taken away
at exactly
that pace–

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A draftish poem of sorts for my own prompt on Real Toads to make an ode to something relatively quotidian.  This one, of course, is very influenced by the horrible tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, this past week, at the Emmanuel African Methodist Church. 

I’ve edited this since first posted, as the end didn’t quite get across the meaning I was aiming for.  Thanks. k.