LIMESTONE

In a city’s grease and smoke

Limestone is gathered

by street cleaners for burial

As the refuse it has become.

For in a city it will blacken

And decompose…

Till, like a leper,

Its rotted parts simply drop off.

Wind buffeted in the desert

Limestone may lose to windburn

Some grains of itself.

Which may ride the sky

For as long as the air is turbulent

Then, in some far distant place,

fall silt-soft from the air.

Limestone will bleed in the rain,

It essence seeping

Deep into the earth

Where it heals in the dark

Forming calcite ripples

In deeply hidden caverns.

Or, melting imperceptibly,

It slips away into rivulets

flowing into gullies and rivers

till it gentles down

onto lake bed or sea floor.