Gems from My Life

Diamond

Some jeweler somewhere

long ago fashioned a featureless rock

into a diamond's tiny facets

from which the sun strikes fire,

Fourth-of-July sparklers

over Crater Lake's lapis

as I swim.

Ruby

No rubies gleamed among the rocks

Along the shore of Ruby Lake,

Nor did the water splash red as I dove in.

But if rubies are the gemstones of the sun

(As Hindus would have it)

Or the king of all gemstones

(As jewelers' ads would have it),

Then, with mountain peaks clasping Ruby

Like prongs gripping the stone of a ring,

The lake was a genuine gem.

Emerald

I have swum in Emerald Lake in the Trinity Alps

in Emerald Lake in the Sierra Nevada

in Emerald Lake in the Rocky Mountains

and could no doubt swim

in an Emerald Lake on many mountains

because a lake as green as those

could not but be named Emerald.

Garnet

They're called garnet yams

Though the rich orange mash

Merges not with our vision

Of the shiny red gleam of garnet gems.

And though the rough red skins

Might resemble unpolished garnets,

We never really see garnets in the rough

So can hardly identify the yam with the gem.

But give anything the name of a gem

And it will sell.

Turquoise

Once, while I wandered lost in psychic hinterlands,

God told me Satan had thwarted all efforts

to give me the ring that would prove

my initiation into the hermetic circle.

I wound in its place a string on my finger.

Later, wandering in mental peregrinations

around the grounds of the mental hospital,

I sat for a spell at a picnic table,

catatonically uncommunicative

even with the man who joined me there.

Years later, I looked often at the turquoise ring I wore

and wondered what had made him give it to me.

Opal

My mother, an October child,

wore opal earrings

which, I was pleased to know,

when we opened her will after she died,

she had opted to leave to me

But, alas!

She had bestowed those opal earrings

long ago on her granddaughter

who had not the will

to offer them then

back to me.

Pearl

I wish you to be an oyster

And turn these grits of irritation

Into gifts for appreciation

Pearls to love

Along with the other gems

Of my personality.