More Poetry by Robert R. Woods

April 13, 2013

   Amazing. One of my poems has evoked a pretty large storm of opinion and conversation. I love it when a poem does that. It's not often that it does, but it sure feels good when it happens.

Stone Butter

We were stone once,

or at least, we pretended to be.
For butter is far too soft, you see,
we’d never survive the heat
the raw looks, the pinches and punches
that mean old summer permits.

Yes, stone it is. Much better than butter, unless,    

of course, you chose to be toast.
You can butter toast, but cruel stone
refuses to change its shape
no matter the kind of bread you bake.
 
We were monsters too, once.  Monsters who
ate gravel and grit and sand the color of fine wine.
With time, though, we lost the will to growl
and screech and gobble up the world,
we lost our selves and became that
which once we skipped across ponds,
or used to beat each other down with.
We did not choose to be stone
but we were, quite sadly, destined to be so.
—rrw o4-12-13