“Bound Stone”
By Colleen Anderson
The beauty isn’t in the choice of stone (a freckled, putty-grey, slightly off-round found object, a palm-sized half-pound of not-even-semi-precious rock) but in the steady, deep attention to this one among the many—not unlike the bond between ourselves, my necessary friend, the way we wrap ourselves with what we’ve known together, year on year. And the koan: A smooth, grey stone with bamboo twined around it in a basket weave is no more bound than a soul is closed inside a cage of bone. No more than death regards the throb of time. No more than love is caught in a net of rhyme.
Colleen Anderson is a writer, designer, and singer/songwriter who lives in Charleston, WV. Visit colleen@colleenanderson.com to see her work and learn about workshops.
NOTE TO READERS: Since its founding in May 2020, WestVirginiaVille.com (a project of AmpMediaProject.com), has been a free online magazine of lively, opinionated & alternative writing and imagery about West Virginia. Help us stay in the business of offering ad-free, worthy content. CLICK HERE OR THE ‘DONATE’ BUTTON TO SUPPORT THE CAUSE.
—————————————
RELATED
POETICS: Two by Colleen Anderson: May 3, 2022: Clean music. The notes fall one upon the other, / transparent. Closing my eyes on this city concert,/ I hear water, the song of melting snow on a hill / in Braxton County, in spring …
5 QUESTIONS: Colleen Anderson on the Art of the Op-Ed Limerick: May 28, 2020: Colleen Anderson is a leading light in the Op-Ed Limerick Movement of the Trump Era. We’re actually unsure whether anyone else writes Molotov limericks in response to the daily depredations of Trump and his minions and toadies. We had ‘5 Questions’ for her.
EDITORIAL: The Art of the Trumpian Limerick: October 27, 2020: As Donald Trump’s first term limps towards its end, we drop in on a Trumpian chronicler. West Virginia poet and writer Colleen Anderson has been chronicling Trump’s misrule for four years now—in limericks.
