I take my thumb and press it. Nestle it. Push it into the heart of the stone. Into the smooth place where it naturally rests. The surfacing cooling my flesh. My forefingers support from the back flat of my bit of polished earth. I circle my thumb, following the thicker edge of the well. With a pressure I think as tender.
I dwell in an ache. Aged. Trained pains. Contemplated another time.
But it’s more the reversal of time that fuels the worry. The backwards future lurking. I sit with my longing to be part of a time moving forward. A Futurerama in the Perisphere. Walking the streets of Democracity in the World of Tomorrow.
But I move through a landscape divided and undecided. Backwards seems the chosen direction. Through a history unlearned and likely repeated. In an unsilent war, encompassing and surrounding. Canons called and hauled by horses to higher ground.
Through a minute. Through an hour. Through a book or extended distraction with the passive pictures from the living room screen. I press harder, coaxing the smallness of an object perhaps observed as slight, to hold a quieting might for inducing refuge and imagined satisfactions. Not a talisman, nor charm. But touchstone. A grounding, precious well, asking for pains and pleasures in the same, simple manner.
With gentle repetition I teach the hollow of my palm to grace the hollow of the stone and choose to believe in the best of the times beyond the immediate horizon. Choose to believe in the best of myself. In my ability to flourish. It is a way of training, if I so like.
And I do like. And the liking leads to doing. Leads to practice. Leads to moving mind and body in a direction more forward than the aged steam train blowing black smoke and cinder into the Wilderness and Chickamauga valley.
I consider the ones I love. Who love me. I am astounded and assured by their love.
I see the rock-shop-keeper’s face from the place I first held my stone. One stone found in dozens resting in a heavy bowl of quartz rested on a counter lowered for ease of reach. In the soft of my palm with thumb bent at root I felt a humble place. A spot sweet.
I see the young woman beside. Following my energy. Hearing her hand mixing the precious choices to bright ring their vibrations. She, too, knowing the need for the worry, the desire for a welcoming size and fit, the yearn for the story with the clearer close.
Appropriate this, my words being written in the day we turn the clocks back. In the first hours of the dark time we’ve contrived and invited.
The stone is warm now. Heating from my push and desire and yearning. Swirling the worry into the deepest place of the well. I bring the hot of my blood to the center and push that little bit harder. With a pressure I think as tender.
1. Cover photo design by Author.
© Copyright William Hazel, 2024
Comments