The Broken Rock

This is the poem I was working on earlier on this evening...Appreciate, and reflect.

The Broken Rock

Here, I stand before you,
Split in half.
A crack drawn through me, from top to toe.
Four quarters make what was once my being.
Four quarters - is all I have,
Quartz, Amethyst, Jadeite, Topaz:
In my body - I lift up to you.
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Before the Word, came the mouth.
The Mouth, to eat a toast and tea;
Of contrivances and insecurities.
The mouth, to speak a thousand holy verses,
In reverberating echoes of their former.

Once, I walked over many a street,
Passed many a shopfront, religious house;
Over the land of half-empty rubbish bins,
Not quite full - yet filling themselves magically.
And I was amazed, in a word.

Oh! How the enchantment of the world, brings
Many to their fame, glory, fortune, success.
Oh! Enchanted heap of stony fossils,
Which lie and crumble;
Crackling before my feet -
Pray, do tell me this:
How do I attain that wealth and greatness,
Others have to hold?

The stones and rocks muttered,
The stones and rocks creaked,
The stones and rocks uttered:
That we were once like you is true.
We served a high - no, higher - purpose.
One thousand and two-hundred times,
We bowed to the Virgin, to her Child.
Beneath a pillar we prostrated -
Awaiting divine edicts and commandments.
Iron collars, coarse hemp - all have we worn.
More than a day too many; yet all in a day.

Frankincense, Myrrh, Gold:
We brought these before the cross.
Wood nailed together, stained with
The blood of an infinity of lambs.
And we worshipped it.

Here, I stood before them,
Not believing mine eyes, or ears,
As the rubble continued speaking,
Muttering its stony rubbish in
Unintelligible intelligence.

The stones and rocks creaked
They creaked, some jeered,
The stones and rocks sputtered:
Yes, we worshipped the wood,
And also the metal which bound those two planks together.
Hailing it the “Saviour”; deeming it “King”.
Flowers, garlands upon garlands, derived from the Africas,
Honey - of the purest hive in the Kingdom of China,
Milk - of the Sacred cows in India;
These - and many more spoils,
We lifted up to the wood.
For the wood - stained with
The blood of a million lambs, had to be the answer,
To our infinitesimal sufferance.
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Here, the stones and rocks drew a pause,
Shifting uneasy - as if wary of having spoken
Some undeniable truth - as a child ponders over
Claim to the missing cookie from the jar.

Sizing me up, the largest lump of topaz pronounced:
So, traveler - you who have seen the many lands of the Orient,
You who have witnessed dawn rise, and dusk set
Upon tropical islands, home to the jujube.
Speak, pray, tell - what hast thou to offer to the wooden monument?

I looked, stark-eyed, into the murmuring cluster,
Its sparkling brilliance, blinding in the almost-noon sun.
The rubble, though eyeless, seemed intent on searching my soul for a sacrifice.
An ingot? A diamond? A million-dollar note, perhaps?
I had none.

My hands opened, palms up to the heavens,
As I faced the scuttling coals, their brilliance no more.
Dulled had they turned - A matt-black, some raging into little bonfires;
Others simmered quietly, glowing a faint orange.

Then, as if an apocalypse had begun,
(Though I daren’t say I am worth such)
The burning stones and heaps of rubbish
Began hurling themselves at me.

Oh! How it stung! How it did burn!
The feeling of stone cutting flesh,
Then injecting molten brimstone into one’s veins.
As poison courses through a condemned convict,
Guilty for an armed robbery that was never his to commit.

As the blood drained its last from my body;
As my being was engulfed in the fiery molten lava:
A flash shone into my eyes, brighter and more brilliant
Than the sun’s reflection on the Lake Avalon…

And then I awoke.
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Whether it was NDS, or divine intervention,
Only time will tell.
Was it a dream, was it real? You ask,
Half-expectant of an answer, which I am reluctant to say.

Only this I show, drawing out from my pocket,
A peculiar stone - partially dulled, yet with a faint
Glimmer of yellow, beneath a charred surface.