The Woman Who Gave Birth to a Stone
Once
there was a woman who became heavy with child, and when the time was done, she
gave birth to a stone, smooth and dark and warm. The midwife gasped at the sudden weight, the
unexpected density. She handed it to the
woman uncertainly, almost apologetically.
It is a stone, she said. You have
given birth to a stone. The woman took
the stone and held it against her skin, feeling its warmth, the warmth that was
her own warmth, taken away and then returned.
A
woman gave birth, and when the midwife pulled the caul away, the stone was
dark, and wet with the fluids of birth, smooth, as though it had moved with the
river for countless seasons, around every curve to finally be born here, to be
held, dark and warm, against the woman’s skin.
She laid the stone at her side, and sent the midwife away. She dried the stone and embraced it, feeling
its weight against her, pressing its curved face with her hand. She made it the center of her heart and fell
asleep curled around it in the dark.
A
woman gave birth to a dark warm stone and began to settle around it in
concentric rings. The stone held the
warmth that was their shared warmth, held it while she curled around it in the
dark. Her hair lay in damp coils around
the stone, and she smiled distantly, gazing at it with heavy, dark eyes,
caressing it, murmuring softly. After a
time, though, the warmth began to fade, the stone began to cool, and as it cooled,
her blood thickened with silt, her breasts became swollen with mud. Still, she continued to settle, and remained
curled, smiling, murmuring Stone, my Stone, the center of my heart.
She
settled into stillness around the stone, and clung to its warmth, to mingle it
with her own. But the stone in time became
cool, and when it had dried, its smooth, firm curve was hardened to her
touch. And so she set the stone aside. She rose up from the bed and went about the
house, passing from room to room as she had done before. She made a place for the stone, and laid it on
soft cotton, wrapped in silks. When she
passed through the room where the stone was kept, she would press her hand
lightly against it, lean her palm briefly against its cool curve and murmur
quietly. Then she would turn and pass to
the next room, carrying the cool fragrance of the stone in her hand.
A
woman gave birth to a stone, and when it was cool and dry she rose up again,
passing from room to room as before. The
place where the stone was kept was cool, and she passed into the room and into
the next, carrying the cool, curved fragrance in her hands. The whole house was filled invisibly with the
fragrance of the stone, and the stone was the center of the house. As the seasons turned, and turned again back
on themselves, the stone settled more and more deeply into its place in the
house, and the woman passed more slowly, imperceptibly more slowly with each
season, pressing the stone more lightly, saving her warmth.
(One
night the woman left the stone in the house and walked to the river. She gazed at the river a long time, but could
see only the light on the surface of the water.
She saw nothing of stones, nothing of the shore, nothing of silt or mud;
only light on the surface, broken and scattered, the partial light of the
partial moon. She gathered that light
together and carried it away with her, carried it home in her eyes that were
the color of stones.)
The
house, the stone in its place, and the woman passing from room to room fell
together into an arrangement, an array of shapes, a shifting chorus of
respective distances that kept a certain, descending rhythm. The woman and the stone, the stone and the
house, the house and the woman circled within one another, drawing away and
returning, and cooling gradually, as the stone cooled. As she had surrounded the stone and warmed it
while she prepared it for birth, so the woman circled the stone in its place in
the house and warmed it as she could with the press of her hand, accepting in
exchange the cool fragrance in her palm.
The house with all its rooms intact surrounded them as it was surrounded
by the turning seasons that swayed like a tree through sun and rain, that
opened and shut the ice on the river like the blinking of an eye.
One
certain spring, just before spring, when winter was still unlocking, the woman
passed into the room with the stone. She
unwrapped it from its silks and held it smooth and dark against her skin. Her breasts were no longer muddy, her blood
was clear and cold and swift in her veins.
Stone, she said, I have no more warmth to give you. She carried the stone out through the rooms,
and placed it in a little garden among a number of other stones. For a time the stone remained outside the
house, passing through snow and sun while the woman passed from room to room
inside. It was a new arrangement, a new
array of shapes and respective distances, that also continued with a gentle,
descending rhythm. One window of the
house looked out upon the garden, and the woman could be seen inside, sometimes
passing, sometimes pausing to press her hand against the glass.
Once
there was a woman who gave birth to a dark, wet, warm stone, who brought by the
force of her body a secret thing into the world. When it was cool and dry, and when she was
clear and cold, she took it from the house and placed it in a garden among the
other stones. For a time she passed from
room to room, as before, circling inside as the seasons circled the house, and
the stone remained among the others, smooth and dark, as at the end of a long
river, always the last stone to be covered by snow, always the first to shrug
it off in the spring.
First published Fall of 2012 in The Bitter Oleander vol. 18 no. 2
