1

Some memories shine like living precious stones

Now scattered on the dark velvet here before me:

Rubies, red with liquid passion;

Opals, playful, transparent, pure;

One rose quartz, heart-shaped and glowing;

Sapphires, azure like some pensive gaze;

Diamonds, strangely lucid and serene,

Emerging briefly from

A universe now lost,

Or hidden . . .

2

Such are the gems I remember from myth long ago,

Before being scattered across the dark firmament:

Glimmering now like distant fires;

Sparkling in the vastnesses of space;

Beaming from the farthest galaxies;

Quietly gazing down through time;

Slowly orbiting inside my brain,

And steadily gleaming like on

Deep dark velvet,

Remote, alive…

Oddly enough, after I had written this poem, back in 1996, I didn’t understand what it meant at all. I set it aside and forgot about it for eight years, believe it or not. When I looked at it again by accident, I finally realized its potential. I then submitted it to a poetry magazine, and they printed it a couple months afterwards.