And stones move silently across the world

 

And stones move silently across the world

‘And if a stone could speak, poetry would be its words.’ — Galway Kinnell

Why are stones so special to us? Why do they fascinate us?

We go to a beach and pick up a stone. We may keep that stone for years.

Blood diamonds fuel bloody conflicts in Africa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8116239.stm
http://www.blooddiamondaction.org

Paulo Coelho touches upon blood diamonds in his novel The Winner Stands Alone.

http://www.heureka.clara.net/books/the-winner-stands-alone.htm

Michelangelo breathed life into stone.

Blue stones were carried from Wales, erected on Salisbury Plain to form Stonehenge, an ancient astrological clock.

Stones were dragged across the desert, carved into blocks to form the pyramids.

Shells drop to the ocean floor, get compressed, millions of years later appear as limestone mountain ranges.

In Castleton, water trickles down from the moors above. On its way dissolves the limestone rock as it seeps through the cracks. In the caves and caverns as the water drips, drips, drips, it leaves behind a fairy grotto of unimaginable shapes.

Carved out of limestone, sitting atop a limestone escarpment, Lincoln Cathedral glows in the evening sun.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28433&id=1033255116&l=1cc00a7e66
http://www.heureka.clara.net/lincolnshire/lincoln-cathedral.htm

 I have pieces of amethyst from mine tailings in Cornwall. Fool’s gold from I know not where. Fossils embedded in stone found at the foot of cliffs on the Dorset coast.

I have pieces of volcanic rock, picked up from a beach, spewed out not so long ago by El Teide.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36270&id=1033255116&l=9dd77990f5

In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Andalusian shepherd Santiago is given two stones by a wise man he meets. If he is unsure, they help him make a decision.

http://www.heureka.clara.net/books/the-alchemist.htm
http://www.heureka.clara.net/art/paulo-coelho.htm

I have two spherical Chinese ‘stones’. One is the moon, the other the sun. Quite what to do with them other than rotate around my fingers I do not know.

We find huge slabs of stone dotted around the landscape. Erratics deposited far from home by retreating glaciers.

A block of limestone has travelled from England to somewhere outside Sydney in Australia. It was a dream. The third such stone to be so transported. Four more stones to be transported who knows where.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n52kz
http://migratingstonenumber3.blogspot.com
http://www.thestonelibrary.com/migrating_stones.html

Poet Alyson Hallett has established The Stone Library, where poetry and stones come together.

http://www.thestonelibrary.com/

If a stone could speak then poetry would be its language.

http://theadventuresofbushybear.blogspot.com/2009/02/and-stone-move-silently-across-world.html
http://www.thestonelibrary.com/poems.html

Tags: stones