And these others—what are they? <br />Not dolomite, sandstone, shist or calcite. <br />I might include ice—the colorless mineral, <br />if ice stayed ice. <br />But what is this one? Some go nameless, <br />do not look like their pictures. <br />This stingy lump, this once hot magma? <br />This is our whole cause <br />of trouble over arithmetic. <br />Now crack two of these together. <br />Fire won't start. <br />I've tried it. <br />How about this? The bad stone, <br />the go-to-work stone, <br />the stone in a uniform. <br />He wants to look just like the other stones. <br />But what would you call my new stone? <br />Nameless, anonymous, <br />this dark stone. <br />Do we think it will teach anyone <br />the name of the mountain <br />all these stones rolled down from? <br />To see the pool of water inside the gem? <br />Or is this the blarney stone, <br />what we get for our kisses, <br />for not knowing our rocks from our minerals. <br />This rock has a spot in it, so smooth <br />it is the start of the first quarry, <br />that zoo of rocks, the untamed, distant rocks, <br />the rocks that make us nervous. <br />On the Scale of Hardness we're talc. <br />But this is not fool's gold, <br />not banker's gold either, <br />our love stamped on it. <br />If this rock could talk I know it would <br />be quiet. Not a stupid rock, <br />this one we love. <br />The loudest stones of history, <br />they are sand now.<br /><br />Lee Upton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-how-and-why-of-rocks-and-minerals/
