The Stones of Memory

BY STEPHEN MEAD.

---

Sit in your hand, reflective,
polished, well-traveled.

How dead ends, promises
have tended their destiny:
the wind river, mistral sea now condensed
in the light of some beloved’s breath.

That was the buoy through long nights
of sickness when you retched & retched
until the water finally stayed down.
That was your island 
when the spasm-gripped body
cried for mom and knew in the dark
not death but life, life’s agonizing fears.

After that, cleansed pure, ceremonious as Christ,
the simple pleasure became, became:

that basket of apples there, sun falling on red
& ripened green, the particular brilliance
of the rain, its resonance too, 
a sound near to sun
the small stones behold
while as if to a shell

you quietly listen in.

---

A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer.  Since the 1990s he's been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. Currently he is artist/curator for an Historical LGBTQI site in progress, The Chroma Museum,  www.thestephenmeadchromamuseum.weebly.com.