cold stone

the fossil sponge that turns up in the rock
its creamy colour and its chalky feel
formed over long ages makes you reel
in horror at the thought or simple shock
at knowing that this piece of a stone block
was long passed over by some fish or eel
now high up a mountain turns the wheel
of time though for this being is no clock
the shapes of corals by the stone preserved
form a connection to a long-sought past
but give us nothing onto which to hold
what fate had these entities deserved
to survive petrified till seen by me at last
and what the messages they could have told