Day 176

I am thinking now about stones, how they lie
on top of the soil or within it, smooth
or jagged, how sometimes they are the size
of your hand and you can hold one, lend the warmth
of your body to the stone until it is filled
with it, until it feels as though it were warm
from its own core. How I offered a stone
like that to a friend once who was grieving some loss.
How she held it, closed her fingers around it.
I am thinking of a boy who had a small stone
he bent to pick up walking home from school
on a day there was still school, still time, still
other boys walking beside him. Still a house
to return to, a mother sitting in a living room
talking with friends, a sister who was small
playing on the floor with a pot, putting on
a lid and taking it off. On and off, making
that sound behind the sound
of voices in conversation.
How he put the small stone in his pocket
and, later, forgot it was there; remembered it
only weeks later when he reached in the pocket
hoping it might be some scrap of food, touched it,
looked at it. Unchanged
when everything else had changed.