TEARS OF STONE**

     “I was discovering
     the laws of misery,
     the wounded, worn out heart,
     and the sounds of the dead, tearless,
     dry, like falling stones.”
         ~~from ”The Injustice”  by Pablo Neruda

Stones have always been our tears
leaving deep ruts
carved into brown weathered skin.
Stones, filled with our blood
littered over many trails
splashing crimson,
staining the already ochre ground.
Similar it seems to the way light
sometimes becomes a green dancer
spreading out neath the forest undergrowth.
These tears,
stones of sorrow,
stain the earth with our children’s fears,
with our fallen lives,
with our endless
sewing, cooking, making bread,
planting corn, sowing and reaping
our dreams of despair
like black coal
gouged from the earth.
It has been such since
the first grains of sand
were washed ashore
carrying simple strands
of carbon life.
And so it will continue
till all are made into
tears of stone
leaving deep ruts
made crimson by our silence.

Aztec Warrior