room to listen...

Four years ago, my Word for the year was LISTEN, and I used xmas money to buy this... the stone is a piece of preseli , and I love how it warms on my skin... 

and it's the stone used to build Stonehenge, I understand.

Later that year, I also bought this...

...as I'd discovered  l i s t e n  and  s i l e n t  use the same letters...

I have never stopped listening to the silence... 

... deep within me...

and the stones...

STONE

Go inside a stone 

That would be my way. 

Let somebody else become a dove 

Or gnash with a tiger's tooth. 

I am happy to be a stone. 

From the outside the stone is a riddle: 

No one knows how to answer it. 

Yet within, it must be cool and quiet 

Even though a cow steps on it full weight, 

Even though a child throws it in a river; 

The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed 

To the river bottom 

Where the fishes come to knock on it 

And listen. 

I have seen sparks fly out 

When two stones are rubbed, 

So perhaps it is not dark inside after all; 

Perhaps there is a moon shining 

From somewhere, as though behind a hill— 

Just enough light to make out 

The strange writings, the star-charts 

On the inner walls. 

~ Charles Simic ~