This poem was written in memory of my mother.

 

Stone of Love

 

Pietà lies abandoned

on pavements

of Augustus, Caius, Caligula,

a kernel of rock

in the heart of Rome.

 

For love in stone

was never so feared

as the atrocious Emperors

who turned Love toward

such stone,

and fixed pity for ever

with boiling madness;

 

yet Pity was feared:

because she would not stay

(but ran and hid)

and could be heard whispering

in the chaos of the day.

 

And you, who

in humid, cold airs

as Winter warmed, glanced

lichened beech become the eucalypt,

 

and strangers formed

in frames of faces,

as I watched your grace

in its transformation,

 

and homeless travellers,

without restoration,

saw me in your resting place.

 

This is how it is

for mother and child,

when the Stone of Love falls

later to dust,

as fall it must.

 

Chris Hubbard

Perth. 2016