Homage to Stone
Stone, you that for ages fell ill love with the dust
stone, you that cure yourself falling
and still ail for the sky
you, who reject to serve anyone
gnawed by poverty
covered with pleadings, scratched with nails
worn out by bare feet
caressed in despair to bring you to life
thrown so that you may circle like a bird
around the thought until it turns to stone
tinkered with heartbeats as with a hammer
and still dumb mute
proud hard obstinate stone.
You who sacrificed both death and life
for a fiercer existence
you who rejected the temporal presence
you who were once a plant, an animal and a man
but returned to your primeval being
near the beloved dust,
you wlio brought strife into space
you who made the elements quarrel
you who imprisoned the light
you who lure us into your permanence
terrifyingly indifferent to the uninitiated—
go burst with the seed of dynamite
burst with my bad wish
proud hard obstinate stone.
You were always the unavoidable nothing
you mocked fire the stench of water
you lied to the earth
made the highest peak equal
to the depths of the abyss
you who toy with gravity
fall and get up again
in order to suffer more
where is one to find for you a peaceful depth?
Levitating incurably in the river of life
you’ll be without rest
proud hard obstinate stone.
You who like a ball break the lightnings
raise the barricade of comprehension
you who pass like flooding lava
through the rotten door of the senses
and thrown by my muscular catapult
drop in the empty space of unwritten poetry
you who like Moloch melt down the darkness
throwing the sparks of rust into the light
you who crumbled Saints’ halos
together with softened skulls
you who steadily dismantle the skeleton of air
you who will not admit a tear
until the whole eye flows out
sizzling like a hot drop of metal
incomprehensible ugly and divine
proud hard obstinate stone.
You who straighten beauty’s bones
like to a sweet woman that has no choice
but to offer herself to you
to be sucked out like a beehive,
you who dealt with the ages
we now only mention
as with a pack of snotty brats
you who assaulted the stars
until you taught them to keep their distance
you who ground down the gods
rolling them through a dry stream bed
and then slyly permitted them
to borrow for themselves your flesh
what evil what malice to you
mean vile foul exiled stone.
translated by Charles Simic