Harriet Genevieve was my great-grandmother and a wonderful storyteller and poet. One of her works hung on the wall of my childhood home, embroidered on an oval cloth. I committed it to memory:
Uncut and unpolished your life is a stone.
It is yours to carve and yours alone.
Life’s weather may scar it, time wear it away,
But you are the artist of what to portray.
Be sure of your image. Engrave the lines deep.
Your life is a jewel God gave you to keep.
No disrespect to my kinfolk, but I feel less like a jewel these days and more like a sedimentary rock.
Tiny grains of random experience build in me, one upon the other, forming colorful strata I could never carve or create.
Sometimes I feel like a big crumbly mess. A big crumbly beautiful mess.
Be sure of your image, engrave the lines deep.
this life is so precious God gave you to keep.
Each facet will glow if you polish with care,
for your life is a jewel God gave you to wear.
…. a few more lines from my memory. I guess I could look on the wall. Keep writing! love you, Mom
My rudimentary understanding is that some jewels are rocks transformed by the pressure of sedimentary rock lying on top of them. Just give it time, my friend
)
You are a beautiful mess. And a hot one, too.