richard fein
THE STONE
GATHERER
"Yet
grains of sand and the cosmos of stars are finite.
Eventually
there comes an end to counting,
a final
sum is reached."
I want to
leave but there are no stones here.
Cold stones
on cold marbles,
mourners mark
headstones with rocks found on the ground.
It is the
tradition.
Strangely
every headstone is crowned,
the ones
still visited by the grieving,
the ancient
headstones once mourned
by mourners
who, themselves, were mourned and forgotten,
and even the
tiny faded and faceless marbles for long‑ago infants.
Someone has
gathered all the nearby rocks
and placed
them as mourners' stones
on all the
surrounding headstones.
Someone
linked the forgotten headstones with the world of the living;
someone who
can keep a distance from so much sorrow.
Who?
A workman
passing time,
or perhaps
Elijah moving under the moon and myriad stars.
I have to
search for a stone.
I must wander
far before I find one
and return to
my place of private grief.
But when I
finally leave and approach the gate,
there are
rows of headstones overgrown with weeds,
that are
bare, so bare, of mourners' stones,
I find myself
gathering rocks.
Somewhere,
someone is gathering six million stones,
a cenotaph
of stones to remember, to mourn,
to keep
ashes together and safe from blowing away.
Richard
Fein Was A Finalist In The 2004 Center For Book Arts Chapbook Competition. He
will soon have a chapbook published By Parallel Press, University Of Wisconsin,
Madison. He has been published In many web and print journals such as Southern
Review, Foliate Oak, DROWN IN MY OWN FEARS Morpo Review, Ken*Again Oregon East
Southern Humanities Review, Morpo, Skyline,Touchstone, Windsor Review, Maverick,
Parnassus Literary Review, Small Pond, Kansas Quarterly, Blue Unicorn, Exquisite
Corpse, Terrain Aroostook Review, Compass Rose and many others.