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.