Stone Story (posted belatedly for Sunday GWE: Personification)

as olivine crystal I emerged

from the earth’s upper mantle

millions of years ago

rising into the deep oceanic crust

where tectonic plates grind together

in the subduction zone between

an island and a peninsula

broken from my mother rock

by tertiary disastrophism

unhappy at the earth’s surface

I rapidly broke down under weathering

and was pressed and tumbled

squeezed and curved

by glacial and marine erosion

and Quarternary-Period

deposition until

with immense pressure

I blended with a slab of slate

into layers and stripes

and we metamorphosed into

a new rock...and eons later

were thrown by tidal currents

and a storm’s waves

onto a fracture-zone beach

and pulled back and forth

between land and sea I was

buried, uncovered, buried

again and again until

one day while lying exposed

I was picked up by a bipedal

vertebrate and found to be

worthy

my shape fit into the curves

of her hand and she liked the

stripes and density of my minerals

and decided to use me for meditation

and thus began our work together

as I warmed under her touch

amplifying whatever positive

thoughts and healing energy

she sent around the world

to many people and places

I learned that all of us

animal, vegetable, mineral

are made of the same stuff

and share the same earth and sun

and planetary forces and though you

may think me a dumb insensate rock

I have news for you if you will listen

we leave our imprint

on each other because

we are all energy