Monday Poems: "Stones" - by Marie Smith

If stones were silver
like my grandmother's spoons
that came boxed
and wrapped in black
two weeks after she died,

I'd cherish them, too,
dip oatmeal, fresh sliced peaches
floating in thick cream,
stir fragrance
of wild, raspberry tea

and sift cinnamon
onto egg custard--spice
that will float, crisp
when three hundred and fifty
degrees has done its job.

And I'd shine them each Friday
like she did the spoons
and lay them, glowing,
side by side on crocheted mats
I'd hook like hers--

If stones were silver.

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Marie Smith (1927 - 2010) was raised in the West Australian bush and on the shores of the Indian Ocean. She moved to Idaho in 1952 to marry rancher/cowboy artist, Cecil Smith (1910 - 1984) and was inducted into the Cowboy Poets of Idaho Hall of Fame in 1996. She lived in Somers, Montana, during her final years. Smith's poems have been published in three volumes of poetry, and in numerous collections. "Stones" was published, most recently, in Poems Across The Big Sky: An Anthology of Montana Poets.