William Keens: Stone

Camille Claudel ended her liaison with Rodin after fifteen years, but was unable to forget him. She would come to Meudon and crouch in the roadside undergrowth to watch him pass.

When I was stone my flesh again

turned in his hands.

I held my breath before his face

and it was good, his hands, that stone,

the women of me that he made,

In their faces, mine; my breasts

my limbs, my hands,

this crease and vein.

His was a way almost witchcraft:

touch the stone, the stone breathes.

Maker! so many times of me.

And if the night took hold

I dreamed of them.

Dreaming, I rose, put on my shawl;

dreaming, let my body go.

Those nights they watched me cross the garden,

open the door, stand before them.

"This is my face." I touch the stone.

"This is my face." The stone lips speak.

Dreaming, I stand in the dark room

that smells of their dust

and call my name.

So many voices answer: "Here I am she."

These days without end

in the tall weeds.

crouched in the grass,

surely stone.

He will not know me

from his work, if I am still.

If I am, still.

These days in the grass

of the yellow slope,

watching all day for a glimmer of my maker.

My eyes lock, my body locks:

surely I am stone.

Whatever flesh now belongs to them,

I drag my heavy body down to sleep

among the stalks and yellow wildflowers.
Sweet maker, hear my prayer: that love was good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Rodin