The Secret from the Ground

In childhood’s realm, I found a prize in earth:
It was a tiny king and tiny queen
Arranged upon a palanquin of gold,
My memory insists they’re beautiful,
The metal robes, enameled faces, crowns
As sparkling-bright as cleft and burnished gems.
The soil had changed the iris of an eye,
And so the king had one of brown, one blue
(Like Alexander III of Macedon),
Though what the colors meant stayed mystery—
The gowns as red as Carolina clay,
The mantles pilfered from the blues of sky.
My marbles were their kingdom’s citizens,
Unruly rollers, aggies, shooters all…
We moved so often when I was a child!
And what gets lost gets lost again in mind,
Forgotten in the attic of the years,
But surfaces in unexpected hours
As shine, uncertain image, longed-for love,
Some resonance impossible to name.