Slowly the rest of the world began to turn
As if stiff from too much time unwound on the shelf.
The top shelf-always dusty- still deems a lusty second look,
More out of respect than desire, of what it had once achieved.
The warm stained surface is now the docile grandmother
The wobbly screw a random glitch in the memory.
And who are you to judge?
As if time had any time for you-
Sharing its ancient secrets with the cartographer around the corner
You- scratched knees and torn jeans- listened half heartedly behind the fence.
At least you chose your side.
And sucking on borrowed plums, late in those sultry evenings
When harvest seems to suggest some coy expectation
From every roaming eye,
You feel the cold steel:
Right at the centre of things
Spiraling under plates and through roasting red rivers
And you feel the true ancestry
The wide and motherly span of this ancient mossy stone.