The Braille of Cobblestone


Keeper of darkness,
of auras reaped from high seas,
vast is your harvest
of earth rumblings beset by molten tears
to charred obsidian made hard glass.

Such reflects primate-memory
once clamored upon by man and beast running,
dodging blade and spear
as wash water dumped from windows high
added slippery footing for predators ever lustful,
ever hungry,
ever historic.

At the high noon of one’s life,
we wonder among your melodies
amidst recent fabrications lining your path.
you the wrinkled skin of ancient masons
serve sun-baked feasts
from the past of pasts.

Your micro-canyons of irrigated seed and drift
send spirits aloft from grasses high,
reminding us that while calendars may crumble,
your stone of old remains young,
transcending the language of vowel and consonant,
acknowledging the touch of phantom eye to eye,
even whispered touches beneath a Nike sole
speaking the tongues of old,
echoing the murmurs of felled travelers,
the severed limbs of warriors,
the rivers of passion red,
polishing fossils within.

Still…

Others would fake Nature's setting,
even make ready counterfeit copies
to pacify the blind living without preference.

Such serpentine monsters of ignorance
whose Gucci laced feet now prance upon your offspring
sold into bondage, interspersed among the fakery
having not a clue of the Carthaginians
or Mediterranean isles of oar-navigated ports.

For like Rodeo Drive's cobblestone plazas,
where modern slavery prisons of today
masquerade as knockoffs once authentic for tomorrow,
your history is reaching fade out,
sans your hidden messages,
your quiet cacophony of silence
made orchestral for those who can hear,
those who dare see through the darkness,
those who can be moved and touched by
the brail of cobblestone.