I Fell in Love with a Stone

Where footfalls are still welcome
I inhale the sweet smell of fire
While a plane passes high overhead with a low hum.

Today, out there, I fell in love with a stone
And lusted for its silvery moss.
I pried it gently from soft earth and cradled it home.

I sang a soft song to my stone,
Rough, heavy, with cool moss that glittered in candlelight.
It nestled in my palm as if it had grown there from beginning time.
I had to laugh at such a beautiful, common, useless thing.

Then I slept and traveled in this dream:
I saw another old woman
Hiding deep in a dark tent, keeping her breath shallow.
She is holding a stone she found in rubble.

Behind her thin tent
Smoke screams from her burning home.
Around her, each footfall she hears is a threat,
Above, each plane carries death in its cargo.

Alert, waiting,
She fondles her stone,
Rough, heavy, slippery with sweat,
A weapon deep in her pocket.

.

Living in a small town in Massachusetts, war can seem so far away. Poetry can help us touch one another. Alice Barrett lives with her actor wife, Jeannine Haas, and two small animals. Her book of poetry is The Bridge published by Human Error Press.