Sat., Apr. 4

Fire cracked rock -
it's called FCR
in archaeological notes.

Fields near my house,
a tumble downslope
from an archaeological site
now a subdivision itself,
are tilled and recently scrubbed by rain.
I walk the furrows, eyes down,
scanning back and forth
as if on survey.

Just at the bend of the straight
to the tilted, walking up towards
the fenceline and swingset beyond,
a scatter punctuated broadly
among last year's cornstalks
and rounded glacial cobbles.

Chunky, irregular, reddened as much
as blackened, heat treated chunks
mostly of granite
(sandstone just crumbles in a fire).
They do not fit the frame,
if you know the picture you're looking at.
Gathered from the creek yards and yards away,
thousands and thousands of years ago,
walked back up this slope
after glaciers rolled them down from Canada
unimaginably longer ago than that.

Hold them up, and crackled quartz gleams crazily,
speckling the surface, rounded hard edges,
still squarish, all about a fist in size.
These held the heat from a fire,
lining a pit, making an oven,
cooking food, and pushed aside by hungry eaters,
but kicked into a pile by cautious cooks,
who know they'll need them again.

They are not gold, not even copper,
and related but the unglamorous cousins
to the worked flint for which
walkers search these fields,
arrowheads and spearpoints.
Yet the value of these darkened,
weighty, heat-holding stones
might have been much more than any
flint found or projectile point made
in the days when these were used.
Now, as symbols, the shape holds all the value.

In my hand, this feels priceless,
speaks volumes, brightens my day,
right now.
But i still toss it gently aside.