Ode to Glass

Unique grains of quartz sand,

Thrive with every caress of the sea's skin.

Individual crumbs run off of the rocks

Into their mother's embrace,

Along the trail leading home.

-

Until the sand goes blind,

In the fumes of soda ash and lime.

Siblings are grinded down to a homogeneous size,

And the tough skinned hooligans are sifted out of the mix.

The fear catches fire.

-

Rising, rising,

Three thousand degrees, three days,

And a single grain fully melts down and softens,

Losing sight of rage as the scarlet taffy

Cools to a spicy auburn river of glass.

-

There is a change in molecular configuration.

The hardships, the heat, and the polarized metal masks

Have strained through the left over sludge.

There are no impurities or bubbles in the high pressure chamber,

Only the charred corpses of the sea's children.

-

Moments pass, minutes, hours, days,

And the EKG catches a beat.

They are rolling, rolling, through vibrant dyes.

The punty performs a tracheotomy, instills a breath.

For the first fourteen hours, they avoid cracks and breaks.

-

Chink, chink,

Smooth and clear the grains are one piece,

Finally reunited, housing their creator in a green tinted bottle.

I close my eyes -- a shard of glass in a fragmented wind chime.

Clink, clang, keessh…

-

As the wind dances, my fingers slip.

Gravity fractures glass, and blinds them again

(Portia Graf 2015)