This is the rock they say grinds men to dust:
so men have cried in the waste of futile years,
their opal bubbles shattered into tears
and all their getting only moth and rust;
the truth, the whole truth they desired so,
proved the last thing on earth men want to know.
Learn of the rock what elemental hand
dismembered quartz and feldspar into sand,
then built it up, a flint to strike a flame;
ask of the gneiss the gin where it was bruised,
out of what crucible corundum came,
in what deep grave the diamond's laughter fused.
This is the hand, hard-muscled, stern of skill
to melt death's rigor, reconstruct the heart,
molding it to more perfect counterpart—
and yet how soft. When the yielding infant will
leaves all it loved, to learn from Love alone,
only the pain is lost with the heart's dissolving stone.
