Stone Lion

The face of the stone lion

has turned white due to weather and time,

two things I understand very little of,

being neither meteorologist nor physicist.

I only know that he reminds me

of a Celtic warrior about to pick a fight,

milky streaks spreading

through the dark copper of his mane.

A stone lion is the best kind of lion to have,

for he requires no meat

and will never turn on you with any sudden wildness.

Being stone, he looks no more tired

than he did all those years ago.

I admire his dignified silence,

and wish I were more like him,

hardly effected by weather and time.

Maybe then the sun I’m sitting in

wouldn’t feel like it had to work so hard

to beat back the certainty of impermanence.

For the moment, though,

I somehow take hold of slippery acceptance

and wrangle it in close,

effort in one hand, surrender in the other.

For the moment, the lion comforts me,

ever gazing at the garden before him,

neither its conqueror nor its servant,

a snail passing before his dependable paws

like a tourist at a national monument.