An oyster’s grit accumulating
new layers of aragonite
and calcite, contributing, plating
the growing bright translucent white
and crystalizing hard, pellucid
wan pearl – that forms within the mucid
molluscan slimy dank inside –
a creamy gem is calcified.
Diaphanous and lustrous jewel
or septic and necrotic stone
that’s like a canker which has grown
into an opulent fat spherule?
A pearl forms round a piece of grit,
my childhood at the heart of it.
An attempt at a Pushkin's Stanza. I think this is the hardest form I've tried so far: it was quite a challenge to get the female/male rhymes in (more or less) iambic tetrameter (obviously an extra syllable for female rhymes). Never thought I would use "aragonite" in a poem.
