If Stones Could Talk

Patricia Bozic

I am a stone, worn down by the tread of two millennia of civilization.

I am—so heavy—I could be an asset to the Mafia.

I am a millstone,

a rare gem,

a grain of sand.

Cavemen have used me as crude weapons.

Armies have marched over me.

Wagonloads of pioneers have pounded me into dust.

Little boys have pelted me at one another during recess in schoolyards all over the world.

Girls in beauty pageants with high hopes and even higher heels have pierced my surface while executing

perfect three-point turns.

Victims of terror and torture have been cut down over me, their lifeblood spilling onto a field of dead rocks.

Ancient Indian tribes sharpened me into razors to slice out the still-beating heart’s human sacrifices.

I am a pit in the earth where nothing grows until the lives of the innocent have been avenged. I am a witness.

I am a lost gem—a fire opal—a universe unto itself, reflecting galaxies of icy iridescence

and incandescent suns.

Collectors with spectacles and large endowments

have come to study me, their ardor as hot as lava.

Now I am smooth and dull, like the bald head

of a wizened old man about to draw his last breath.

A tapestry of tears of ten thousand generations

has bleached away my brilliance.

I am a prism of humanity,

sustained by

Mothers rushing with baby carriages, each step a caress

The footfalls of lovers—weightless

Angels’ flight

White light

Children skipping stones at the seashore

I click, click, click across the water, once, twice, three times.

It is like singing.

A pool of azure cradles me.

The gentle rocking of the waves is my lullaby.

At rest, I reflect: If stones could talk, what stories

they would tell.

Eyes wide open, arms flung out, hair streaming behind me, Ophelia-like—

an Ophelia with chutzpah, who screams:

“I have been betrayed, beaten down, left in the dust and

reduced to rubble.

Now get off my back!”

I bide my time, letting the warm water wash away the

negativity that has kept me withdrawn in my shell.

Rejuvenated, I feel as buoyant as a water sprite.

I am in the process of being.

Reborn,

In one hundred years, I emerge anew, perfect, pure, symmetrical—a pearl.