What Worth

Some inklings are dried rose buds
stored in a square fluted jar. Who needs
a jar full of dried roses self-appointed
saints might inquire?
Maybe no one. Maybe everyone.
Certainly someone. Certainly me.

I display the jar
where those invited to visit
may incidentally view it.
Some sigh or ooh or ahh, ask wherefore
or pass a disinterested gaze to Cardinals
roosting outside the kitchen window.

Some considerations are variegated shells
gathered from Atlantic and Pacific sands,
gray striations calcified around soft bodies
of need; storm shelter, homes borne
move to move to move, the many
migrations across continents and Selves.

Some offerings are stones, rough, porous
opaque lava, translucent polished fluorite
both grounding, stable, calm in chaos.
Mystic Merlinite to dispel illusion: quartz
feldspar embedded with black tourmaline rods,
pyroelectric or storing charge, repelling negative

vibration. No need to believe in the magic
that needs no belief to exist.
No need to regard this collection of shells
that requires no admiration to persist.
No need to smell perfume preserved in dried petals.
Sour frowns are pruned grapes I toss to my Cardinals.