Sharon Kourous

Summer Solstice -for my son, on his birthday   I was in the garden carrying small round stones, white and smooth, fist-sized, tying bits of twine in complex patterns, performing mathematical calculations in my head, readying to mark the straight sun-line from horizon to you when the first contraction came. It was another irritation -- like your clumsy bulk in amniotic dreams, fighting your way around the dark earth-spin toward horizons of your own; rooting me into the land. I ignored you: there was a greater task. It was time for some new stonehenge. No doubt in the brashness of your twenties you assume because sorcery was used it was a simple task. Not so. Each monolith carved from bedrock had to continue, believe rollers under it, a thousand shoulders at the ropes.   Sometimes in the sweat of concentration some distraction would intrude: entire granite cliffs would sheer away. Thousands died screaming beneath the clutter of the fall. This solstice morning then required my absolute attention. Between my granite thighs, reduced to stolid stone and wrapped in white; your small head, crowned in sunlight, rose.

Copyright © 2000 Sharon Kourous All Rights Reserved Originaly published in The Neovictorian, 1998