rock – in – a- glass friend
I shall emulate you,
your prolific confusion of
amber and pink and
most of all green
I have freed you of dirt
soil rich with mud and
crawling slimy things
It encased you, coffin – suffocated you
and you with such a fine coat
I give you water that you may cleanse
cleanse into vibrating life again
compacted life, fusions of eras
never seen by my eyes,
prints of feet long dead upon your shell,
scrapes from obtrusions never
suffered by me, scents
that clung sinuously to you
in frosts preceding my father’s birth
and his father’s birth
You melded souls of some earth
somewhere foreign, shared element
heat and pressure, mill ground bone
liquid flesh, animal fire
plant muck, shit, mire
You entered, withstood and divided
realms so permanently virgin
so unknown to existence of thought
pure, divine, the stuff that
whole solar systems define,
all stars, all suns,
all comets losing their brief tails
joined a willing force in you
accented you in full arrival dress,
your amber and pink and most of all
a cloak of earth’s infinite green.
– Hugh Findlay