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Edward Hopper, Lime Rock Quarry No. 1 – 1926

The more we know the
more we know the world’s a wonder. We’re
apprenticed, every one of us, to stone.

from Linda Gregerson’s “On Form,” TNY 2026

Welcome, everyone. Dora here (Dreams from a Pilgrimage) hoping to tempt your poetic muses to sing songs of stone, be the stone as small as a pebble in a macadam pavement and a gem set in jewelry, or as towering as a mountain and cavernous as a canyon.

Auguste Rodin, Le Baiser (The Kiss, marble, 1882), was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in Dante’s Inferno (Circle 2, Canto 5) who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta’s younger brother Paolo.

Petrology (from Ancient Greek πέτρος (pétros) ‘rock’ and -λογία (-logía) ‘study of’) is the branch of geology that studies rocks, their mineralogy, composition, texture, structure and the conditions under which they form.

Lyric petrology is a study of rocks that revolves around our relationship to them. Actually, I have no idea if such a term exists but it’s within the purview of my poetic license.

I tell you, He answered, if they remain silent, the very stones will cry out.”

Luke 19:40

Here’s a list of examples of lyric petrology to get you started:

John Keats died in Rome and was buried in its cemetery for non-Catholics, the Cimitero Acattolico. The headstone was designed by Keats’ friend, the artist Joseph Severn, who is buried next to him.The young Oscar Wilde on a visit to Keats’ grave in the spring of 1877, described it as ‘the holiest place in Rome’.

William Blake’s “The Clod and the Pebble” (Songs of Experience, 1794) is a dialogue of selfless love and cruel pride.
Christina Rossetti, “Good Friday” (1862), compares the hardness of her heart to a rock.


James Russell Lowell, “The Green Mountains” (1841-1844), writes of the mighty force of nature that is the mountain.
Emily Dickinson, “The Mountain Sat Upon the Plain” (1890), transforms an imposing geological creation into a homespun figure.

The Romans, whatever you think

of them, did this better. Ditched
and cambered, layered roadbed five

feet deep. Lime from the likewise
layered rock that once was coral and algae

and shell, ash that was once a volcano.

from Linda Gregerson’s “On Form,” TNY 2026


Sara Teasdale, “Jewels” (1917), uses the metaphors of precious stones to reflect longingly on love’s idyllic days.
R.S. Merwin’s, “Tidal” (1993) reveals Merwin’s spiritual struggle using the metaphors of rock and sea.

But how
in the history of accident had

humanity come upon quicklime?
Which, added to concrete, means

that something not in nature can, like nature,
heal. 

from Linda Gregorson’s “On Form,” TNY 2026

Gillian Clarke, “Ichthyosaur”(2017), meditates on a fossilized ichthyosaur skull and the death of a stillborn lamb.

Gillian Clarke, “Hearthstone” (1997), ponders the literal and symbolic weight of a quarter-ton slab of slate transported from a quarry in Blaenau to serve as the foundation for a home fireplace. The imagery mingles local culture and human history as they overlap with geological time. 

Gillian Clarke
Gillian Clarke


In Patricia Lockwood’s, “Rosarita” (LRB 2026), a glass slag created as a by-product of smelted gold, becomes the central symbol for an examination of love and artistry. Rosarita is a striking red, orange, and sometimes gold tones resulting from the high-temperature fusion of quartz sand (silica) and residual gold left in the material.

Last week our own Lillian the Home Poet, who at the moment is on the high seas, shared a poem literally “From the Land of Fire and Ice” where basaltic volcanic flow continues to change the landscape.

You’ve guessed it! Using the above poems as examples, I want you to write a poem featuring, if not centering, on rock or stone. The earth, so to speak, is your oyster.

The Kailasha temple, built 756–773 AD, is the largest of the rock-cut Hindu temples at the Ellora Caves in Maharashtra, India. Although the basalt rock face slopes downwards from the rear of the temple to the front, archaeologists believe it was sculpted from a single rock.

For newcomers, here’s what to do:
Write your poem and link it up to Mr Linky below.
Please put a link back to this post in your post – it increases our traffic, and ultimately yours.
Mr. Linky will close on Saturday at 3 PM (EST)
Read and comment – there’s no better way to get to know your fellow poets. Enjoy!