STONE CITY

          —for Butch Berry

You can hear the city open

its primal heart tonight—

the sound of roiling blue,

orange shadowing tan.

The deep veins of granite

running like a river through.

Quarried out of another

world and shipped here

for a façade. Say flagstone.

Say brownstone. Say red

light motor rumble madness.

The stones of this city remember

their waters, their mountains.

In the swirling grains of rock

each memory is played out

again and again. Tonight, tonight

this city hums and vibrates

all of its shades and bones.

J. P. Dancing Bear is the author of Inner Cities of Gulls (SalmonPoetry, 2010), Conflicted Light (SalmonPoetry, 2008), Gacela of Narcissus City (2006), and Billy Last Crow (2004).  His poems have been published in Shenandoah, Third Coast, New Orleans Review, Natural Bridge, The Raleigh Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Verse Daily, and many other literary magazines.  He is the editor of American Poetry Journal.