339 Poem by RIC BASTASA

you are telling me about a stone
who refuses to admit anyone simply
because it has no door, no room and no space
for someone like you,

you who does not even know what knowing someone
really means. you ask the stone for a space and it says no
and you tell the stone that it has a space
where the leaf and a dropp of water live

the stone says no, and you insist because of the state you are in
you are dying and you need a place
perhaps a burial space where you may finally lay yourself
to rest, but the stone still says no, telling you that it has
no feelings that for centuries it has always been its nature

stony, stony silence, stony stares, unfeeling, that in its
house of stone, there exists no word for sympathy
that it is simply living up to the demands of its true nature
its tradition, and you finally understand, yet somehow you
tell the stone about what it does not know

inside it there is this leaf with dew, there is dropp of water
coming from the rain, that until now it has not fully known,
that inside its stony silence, there is still this song
that it has a heart that it keeps denying.