Day 498: Gemstones

 

 

When asked this question by his young son, this is what Don Paterson replied, explaining the process 

of poetry  in a way a child would understand. 

 

 

Why Do You Stay Up So Late? - Don Paterson

       

For Russ

 

I’ll tell you, if you really want to know:

remember that day you lost two years ago

at the rockpool where you sat and played the jeweler

with all those stones you’d stolen from the shore?

Most of them went dark and nothing more,

but sometimes one would blink the secret color

it had locked up somewhere in its stony sleep.

This is how you knew the ones to keep.

So I collect the dull things of the day

in which I see some possibility

but which are dead and which have the surprise

I don’t know, and I’ve no pool to help me tell -

so I look at them and look at them until

one thing makes a mirror in my eyes

then I paint it with the tear to make it bright.

This is why I sit up through the night.