Empty Preservation
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
“To the loose stones that lay upon the highway,
I gave a moral life.” ~ Wordsworth
The stones up on a mountainside, the stones
Enclosed inside a Buddhist temple scene,
The Greek ones piled on Rupert Brooke’s grave bones,
The highway stones that Wordsworth gave the sheen
Of ethics to, and stones that Jesus said
Would cry out, these are every one the same.
The stones are stones are stones are stones. A bed
Of stones is piled on Jewish tombs. Aflame
With meaning they remind us that a man
May have a heart of stone, but stones have hearts
For those who lay them wretchedly, a sad divan
With cushions made of hopeless stony parts.
No stones make up community. At best
They say, if scattered, stacked, there comes a rest.
~ Phillip Whidden
