The Lord's Lilly laughs
at the pushing man,
the climbing man,
the man who steps
in the face of his friends.
He doesn't know how he is loved
or the beauties that could be
realized inside him.
But Lilly holds the secret
like a warm stone
to her soft breast:
the unchangeable secret
that falls upon the bald, hard heads
of men of means,
and other scalawags,
when they inevitably come to know
they chose the wrong dream.
There is a stone that crushes dust
back to dust
and lets the wind blow it where it may!
Lilly has suckled an old stone
and her white milk has made it hum and sing.
Many thought her odd enough.
"Crazy in her beauty!"
they said to each other
in the cafes and the squares
when they saw her tripping down the lanes
with the old stone in her shawl.
"Not giddy enough to be truly mad,"
the old priest said.
Lilly laughed at them all
and threw the stone down
into a clear creek
morning and evening
to wash her milk down to the sea
and to let the waters
make the stone sing
its solid, silent songs
for every flashing, silver fish
to hear.