Birthstone

My father laid them on the table.
I had first choice and didn’t hesitate:
its pure light, ice-rink smooth,
seducing the eye into a multi-
mirrored whirlwind of blazing crystals;

triangles, spiky, driven,
always offering a third opinion.
From every angle, lightnings guide,
like a compass with forty norths,
a captured star.

I think of its birth, deep beneath
the Drakensberg, source of the Orange
river, then slipstreamed west to Namibia’s
long Atlantic shore, strong pull of current
leaving alluvial deposits

on drowned terrace, pocket beach,
bedrock gully, wind corridor
hand-picked by smugglers,
or divers sweeping the seafloor,
ferrous gravels

jigged by suction hose and pump, seeking
this tear of the gods, the brilliance
of its beauty fitting, as far back
as Exodus, for the breastplate
of judgment.

This, my birthstone,
her perfect aphrodisiac;
neglected in my possession,
hidden during conflict days,
almost, as with her, abandoned.

Last days together, laughing
at childhood memories,
taking her hand on a hospital bench,
twisting the ring on her too-
thin finger.

I twist it now, on mine,
twirl my tongue over its cool surface,
until it sparks a different view -
and something in its light, a fleck,
reflects my mother back.


Published in Southword under the title Journey of a Birthstone.