Sensitivity
SENSITIVITY
They’re all ignored by us, but they have feelings too :
A black gravestone in New York, down in the world,
Recalling its halcyon days as a part of
The impressive strata at Palisades Park.
The statue in the museum of Androcles and the Lion
Daydreaming - oh, for the good old days just lying sunbaked
On the beach surrounded by
Fossil shells and shrimp at Sables d’ Olonne,
With the feet of the famous resting gently on you.
And the marble fireplace in our living room -
He can still see in his mind’s eye
The Carrara quarries in bygone days…..
Why, some of his great-grand-daddies were
Hacked out of there and taken to Rome for the Via Appia.
Oh yes, stones have feelings too.
My carved ship-of-the-line from Nelson’s navy
With her masts and spars and decks and cabins
Lies awake at night thinking of her days
In the pine forests of Norway; and next to her
This old cedar jewellery box, with intoxicating
Smells of the coast at Prince Rupert
Where she lay on the beach for weeks
Before the saw mill changed her shape and sent her to me.
The new sapele door in our hall spends hours
Wishing for his buddies in the jungles of Uganda
Where the ants would tickle you
Half to death with their constant scurrying
Up and down your branches, building this or that.
Listen closely and he’ll boast that some
of his relatives ended their days as propellers
on German zeppelins, I kid you not.
Everyone has to feel special.
And what about those unassuming steel forks in my drawer
who can still tell stories
Of their days as iron ore in Finland,
And how their brother Ernie became
A bumper on the President’s limo (supposedly).
Or my wife’s copper bracelets with their pathetic tales
Of being shipped from Cyprus
and remelted into ingots in Bimingham.
I have overheard the wings of a 747
Recollecting in the hangars at night
How their existence as bauxite in Jamaica was so idyllic,
“Wit all dat reggae and smokin’ and god knows what, man.”
They too have their memories.
And, man, de smell in dat hangar!
Copyright © Sidney Beck | Year Posted 2010
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