Stone

Stone

     Stuck in the cave, philosophers'

only freedom came from mushrooms'

magic making shadows on the wall

     into glamours, illusions hiding

     from apprentices as myriad

automatic brooms or Hermès scarves.

Think the philosophers stone came

from that cave? Reddish like the clay

               god breathed into to

          make Adam? Yet terracotta

can't change to gold or grant eternity.

     For every alchemist who belongs

to dawn then dusk, another lies inside

          the temporal, still outside heaven.

[sonnet]

Stone

     Stuck in the cave, philosophers'

only freedom came from mushrooms'

magic making shadows on the wall

     into glamours, illusions hiding

     from apprentices as myriad

automatic brooms or Hermès scarves.

Think the philosophers stone came

from that cave? Reddish like the clay

               god breathed into to

          make Adam? Yet terracotta

can't change to gold or grant eternity.

     For every alchemist who belongs

to dawn then dusk, another lies outside

          the temporal, still inside heaven.

[first version]