Creative

Creative: The Principle of Succession by Katherine Moss

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Photo: “Fossil Sitting in Sunlight” by A Guy Taking Pictures

She says she is not my rock
and this is as it should be,
I, a craftsman, her lapidary,
picking my tools blindly.

I feel that she is smooth and retains
an inner cold but she has grown
to become faceted, not like a jewel
but dull and heavy. Gritstone hewn.
Strife and the fear that belongs to others
struck upon her like flint against flint,

why then did she not make fire?

She is the founding stone
they build their futures upon.
At the edges she is flawed
with wear and tiny fissures,
like bites from the diamond
teeth of their sawn-off success.

She is set. Long laid down.
Nothing should have the force
to push her further into new formations.
Her face turns towards the sun’s own
hand lens shifting darkness on a sundial.
Hold her long in your palm

she will mimic your warmth.


This creative piece was submitted as part of our November theme: Isolation and Introspection. If you would like to submit your own creative work to aAh! Magazine, please email aAh.Editor@gmail.com, and be sure to check our latest “Letter from the Editors” to find out next month’s theme.

About the author / 

Katherine Moss

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