Stonemason

______________

for Michelle Coffey

What possessed you?
Was it the dead weight
Compressing you and bearing you down further into the earth
Further than feeling and the firm hand of gravity
The moon and the tides pulling and dragging you
Your heartstrings tugging and binding you

When the cart arrived laden with starlit granite
Its tiny silver mirrors signalling to the sun it hadn't seen in years
Stone was thrilled to be on its way to work
Happier than the salt-tipped sea

You loved every lopside and jagged edge, its shape and tone and size
Hammering here and there to knock lumps off
Leaving the chisel on the ground for the finest music
All the while the dream of your wall climbing
Only you and your seventh-year apprentice knew the secret
How every crooked thing could end up straightening out the centuries
Lessons in the mathematics of everything
Love's picnic table
You turned the world upside down and inside out
Every bump and blow you gave two hundred years ago
Rises still like the morning's blessing
Because you knew and loved
The holy anarchy of shape