All Stone Returns to its Quarry
Chimney stones—severed, stacked, and fired—
cast off their mortar, levitate and fly
to clink and clang like teeth reset in jaws.
Granite cobblestones once shipped as ballast
shrug loose from road beds, rise and streak
as intercontinental missiles to old veins.
Rough limestone blocks suck all their flakes back on,
hover, turning toward their birthing pits,
to boomerang into their bedrock wombs.
Flint points of spears and arrows slip their shafts
un-knap, revert to blanks and blocks
then, airborne, slip into their mother lodes.
And countertops pop off, suck back their saw—
and grinding dust, un-slice and join their kin
in quarries that had birthed and launched them all.
Finn Bille
1991-2021
Published in Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel 2024 anthology.