Rock Collecting

For Samuel

He hands me another rock, his brown eyes
wide and says, "Daddy, what kind of rock is
this?" And living where we do the answer is
nearly always the same, "That's a limestone
sweetheart." And I expect him to drop it
and say, "Again?" Instead he slips it so
carefully into the pocket of his
jeans, you would have thought I'd said, "A ruby"
when he'd asked.

But searching the ground, he stoops
again to pull a raw white treasure from
the earth. I rejoice that the same answer
is always new to him. Limestone, white rock
does not stop him from looking as he walks
picking now a pebble, now a stone, all
his, in a whole new world made just for him.

© 2005, Steven Riddle