Like a miniature city made of glass,
this crystal quartz extends transparent spires,
rust colored at their base, shafts tinged with brass
as if inside the matrix stone some fire
raged out of sight and sent its telltale glow
up the clear prisms of the shafts. This stone
grew, layer by layer, flake by flake; no
other stone adds to itself, grows like bone
up the shadow ladder its electrons cast
beyond themselves as if the rock aspires
to something more than rock, some special flow,
something akin to life. In this clear stone,
the atom’s lattice could such beauty yield,
we could not bear to have it all revealed.
©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS
William John Watkins 