The odd, poetic moment

in response to hearing that I am 'smooth'

I.
If I am smooth It is the smoothness of a river rock
Or a pocket-worn coin I wasn’t made that way:
I came into this world all hard angles, bounce and static-
The lone receiver of a longing filled broadcast
That could only be my ancestors,
Desperate to defend the choices they once made.

II.
In 19aught what?
my Grand Uncle Walter
was the first man to ride a bicycle down Pike’s Peak
-before it was paved or graded-why he did it I do not know
The song writer thinks that it was to show that
When our days are done no stone will be rough - no path unpaved
but the householder knows:
his brain was starved in the high altitude.

III.
Your hands are not smooth
They are calloused from the
Grasping and hefting and testing of
Your own river’s bed of rocks
Still, the very work that roughens those hands
Washes them so clean.