Ode to the River Stone
A poem
*******
"Dumb as a bag full..."
of you--
at least, that's what they say.
Is it true?
I wonder sometimes--
if wisdom comes with age,
does insight live in you?
Your years are as numerous
as the grains of sand that your broken parts
one day become.
You endure the storms in silence.
Your only armor--
yourself--
ever-changing
as you shed the weakest parts
of yourself.
Never do you weep
or plead your case,
begging the elements to cease.
No,
but ever onward you roll,
only occasionally
bonding to other versions
of what you could have been,
sometimes weaker bits--
a buffer to shield you
from losing more of yourself,
and other times,
you are the weaker one,
grabbed ahold of by the larger, stronger
versions of what you could have been
but never thought to wish you were.
They pull you along
a little farther downstream, downhill,
forward in time.
You lose parts of yourself to the movement,
to the ever-changing and progressing,
never-yielding or slowing,
always-eroding
passage of time.
But you never change your core.
Your makeup remains the same,
forged in fire and pressure,
carried along by currents,
knocked about by those you might have been--
some stronger, some weaker,
some older, some younger.
Violently, you bash into each other,
battles fought not with each other,
but against nature,
against time and pressure.
And so you become polished,
rounded where there once was a sharp edge,
smooth where once there was a crack,
never in control of your shape or your journey,
but never losing the core
of yourself.
True to your makeup you remain--
Just a rock--
forged in fire and pressure--
a testament to the ever-changing and progressing,
never-yielding or slowing,
always-eroding
passage of time.
And yet here you rest--
in the palm of my hand.
Smoother than my skin,
harder than my bones,
your years as numerous as the specks of dust
that form my makeup,
And I wonder...
"what insights might I gain
from this small rolling stone?"
*******
Art & Words © Lena Folkert, 2023. All rights reserved.
About the Creator
Lena Folkert
Alaskan Grown Freelance Writer 🤍 Lover of Prose
Former Deckhand & Barista 🤍 Always a Pleaser & Eggshell-Walker
Lifelong Animal Lover & Whisperer 🤍 Ever the Student & Seeker
Traveler 🤍 Dreamer 🤍 Wanderer
Happily Lost 🤍 Luckily in Love
Comments (9)
Congrats on your story!
Wooohooooo congratulations my friend!
Congratulations Lena. Gorgeous. ❤️
Yay! Congrats.
Congrats! Great concept and excellent execution!
I love the comparison of the smooth to an experienced soul. Well done ❤️
This makes me think of the "mound of witness" where stones would be piled up in a certain spot to bear witness to promises made (& broken). In a lighter vein, we could simply get stoned & find out, lol.
Thus is gorgeous. Well done, my friend.
Great read Keep up the great work!"