The Story of Stones
They lie along the pond’s edge
refusing to nestle or speak.
Their acceptance is to sun and moon
all types of weather.
Sometimes a kid comes
and casts them out yelling wildly,
another gathers them up
and scurries them home.
And sometimes a father
tries to name them
pointing to their faces and bodies,
but kids ignore this
and hold the stone up close,
its surface touching skin
to hear their real names,
Later they place them by their bed
to dream upon—
stones that break open into crystal,
stones that shed a white milk,
stones with stone hearts,
stones to swallow as candy.
Days and nights, weeks and months,
until a mother gathers them up
and throws them out into the yard.
Under sun and moon again,
they are kissed by weather.
About the Author: Larry Smith is a poet, fiction writer, and editor-publisher of Bottom Dog Press in Ohio where they feature a Working Lives and an Appalachian Writing Series. He is also the biographer of Kenneth Patchen and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He lives in Huron, Ohio, along the shores of Lake Erie.
More By Larry Smith:
Image Credit: “Pont de Sallanches” V. Muzet (1860s) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
As It Ought To Be 
Thanks for sharing these stone voices…
Larry
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