A Choral Poem for the Opening of the Shower of Stoles

Stones..

The foundation of the temple.

Rough-hewn, massive, steady.

They form the ground beneath our feet;

the roads on which we walk.

They close deep wells and caves,

they stand alert at tombs,

awake through rain and wind.

We pile them up in artful shapes

and carve the plots of lives well lived

into their sturdy sides.

Pillars speak of life and death,

of love and loss,

of courage and failure of nerve.

We place them along the way;

they tell us what’s ahead,

the places we must see,

the miles that still remain.

We grind our grain

and crush our herbs

and shape our pots

upon these solid friends.

And then,

because these ancient chunks

of holy handiwork,

these solid, beauteous stones,

are not enough

for grasping hands like ours,

we use them for our walls.

We build them high and thick

so no one can remove

the idols we collect;

the walls that prove

how small we are;

how filled with fear.

The walls are bad enough,

but then we search the ground

for fragments of the temple stones.

And just because we can,

we throw them

at the unsuspecting one

who does not mirror

what we want

or what we like

or who we love.

We also hurl the confusion

and wrath of our stony hearts;

missiles of our minds’

hateful contemplations.

O Holy One, you who sculpted and painted onyx and quartz, amethyst and opal,

you who fashioned granite and marble, employ our hearts

to use your stones

to reach the sky

with tributes to your steadfast love.

For if we do not, the very stones will cry out.

© 2003 John Thornburg