And a white stone is given to each of those
who come into the celestial kingdom….
—Doctrine and Covenants 130:11
After he died I found this note printed in his spidery hand:
SMALL, SMOOTH, FLAT, ROUNDISH
STONE ¼ TO ½ POUND HELD IN THE
LEAD HAND
EYES CLOSED WHILE SITTING IN
EQUILIBRIUM
MAY HELP
Imagine the stone’s a crystal.
Imagine he sees his dead cat Missy,
the movies he skipped school
to watch in Philly,
his father beating to the ground
a man who owed him money,
the skiff he stole to sail round
the Chesapeake,
and how he scampered farther
after graduation. It may be true
that he became a teen road warrior,
a quartermaster striker in Nam, a Jew
in the Tel Aviv airport, script doctor
in Hollywood, hospital chaplain
in Richmond, an armed guard, a poor
man when his savings went down the drain
called Enron—or it may not,
but projected in the stone
is all he did or imagined, what he ought
or ought not to have done—
the cash he saved from the wreck and concealed
in PVC pipe from his wife,
and all the other times he made her weep.
The stone’s pitiless light
does not spare him, does not censor
the years it took him to admit
he’d used her, slighted and vilified her,
at last used his fist,
but by then (it flickers in the stone)
she’d moved on, beyond the reach
of his regret, and died. Does life teach
a harder lesson?
But the film judders, advances, shows
his painting on glass a man-
of-war; his riding a bone-
shaking bull to impress a woman;
the moment in the OR
dying of a coronary,
that brief, extraordinary
dark that gave him comfort;
his baptism morning, when he was still
on edge with anger and fear,
but willing for angels
and messengers of grace to temper
with patience and love, though not before
he slugged a second counselor;
the hours he took on chores
to serve Jesus and his neighbor.
He sits still in his room, his rescue kitten
beside him purring,
weighing in his hand the stone,
his heart remembering
the dream where he cried
in anguish for relief,
Why’s everything so hard!
then saw a smith’s hands beat
into thorns and blossoms metal
softened in the fire:
Christ was the hammer, Christ the fire,
he was the hammered iron.
