Behind the Stone

 

Upon the stone face of the world

the laughter of trees; the scars

of the battles of sun and snow.

Behind the stone, 

the graves of lost streams

and printed in rock, 

the fish of a swallowed sea:

locked in the ripples of time,

the clock of a billion years.

 

Upon the stone face of an old man

the scars of a war, the lines

etched in channels of childhood tears.

Behind the stone, the dreams of a boy,

the loves of a youth, 

the dull pain of slow decline:

a mind still clutching the joy

and the sadness of eighty years.

 

Out of grey eyes the old man is watching.

The face of the world still smiles and grows.

The treasures he holds so tightly for now

the stone will keep for ever.