When the molten earth seethed <br />in its whirling cauldron <br />nobody watched the pot <br />from a tall wooden stool <br />set out in windy space <br />beyond flame's reach; <br /> <br />and when the spattering mush <br />steamed, gurgled, boiled over, <br />mounded up in smoking hills <br />no giant mixing spoon <br />smoothed out the lumps and bubbles <br />as the pottage cooled to rock. <br /> <br />No kitchen timer ticked <br />precisely the eons required <br />to fill the gritty pits <br />slowly, drop by drop <br />with layers of glassy salts, <br />agate, opal, quartz; <br /> <br />no listening ear inclined <br />over the silicon mold <br />to hear the chink of crystals <br />rising geometrically <br />facet upon facet <br />in the airless dark. <br /> <br />No hand lifted the stony lid <br />to add light, the finishing touch, <br />and no guest cried Ah! how well <br />the recipe turned out - <br />until this millennium, today, <br />at my table.<br /><br />Julie Hill Alger<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/opening-the-geode/
