Opal
Perhaps
against no other gem has the bigotry of
superstitious
ignorance so prevailed as against the
wonderful
opal
— Isadore Kozminsky, The Magic and Science of Jewels and
Stones.
The names could be those of
pedigree stallions:
Tabasheer, Menilite
Harlequin,
Contra Luz.
With reds like rubble on fire
or a pair of pink-silk ballet
shoes
dragged
across a stone floor
by
their ribbons.
The blue-greens are half air,
half ocean
the eyes of knowing tom cats
peeking
from inside an aurora australis.
The gem in my ring is dying
through
my neglect.
Composed of a measure of water
opals must be worn
habitually
so they might feast
replenishing
themselves
on sweaty fingers
or
the nape of a neck.
They need natural light
to show their true colours.
That is all they are, really:
thirst and ball-bearing tricks
of
reflection, refraction.
My sister, on her deathbed
insisted
I inherit the ring to prove
our family legend wrong:
that from that point on
no death would follow
each
instance
of
its being worn.
I took possession to appease her
but have had to invent
my
own rules of engagement
as I did with boys all those
years ago.
First date, external touches
of
the closed velvet case.
Second
date
a cautious lifting of the lid.
I can’t or won’t
go
all the way.
The opal in my ring is dying:
losing
the potency of its colours
becoming
crazed.
How can I blame it for wanting to
thrive?
The multicoloured eye
in the fairytale oval mirror
of
its gold setting
mocks me as frigid, or glares
a chromatic challenge
or glints in the visual
pheromones
of seduction:
bedroom
light on jigsaw colour.
It aches for me to pick it up,
slip it slowly
past the tip of my finger
all
the way down the length of the shaft.
Only then would we really
know
each other.
And tomorrow, we could walk
together in the sun.
It’s dangerous, staring into the box too long
knowing
my opal ring
has
already forgotten my sister.
Knowing
that if I reach out
and
do this one small thing
in
return, it promises to love me
forever
and
ever.
New book out from Judy Johson
courtesy of Walleah Press in Tasmania!
I heard Judy read this poem up in
Newcastle and it really got to me and I was astonished when Judy told me it had
never found a good home in a magazine or journal before it was tucked away into
the book. But that can happen to even the most well-endowed of poems, they go
out and about but they just don’t catch someone’s eye. They are read after
midnight at the end of a long run of reading, or they get tucked under the in
tray and don’t get read at all, or just as the editor sits to read them the
window cleaner arrives, or someone rings with a thorny question, or it’s
lunchtime. And that’s that. They don’t get picked up.
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