These stones are not sad.

Within them lives gold,
     they have the seeds of planets,
           they have bells in their depths,
                 gloves of iron, marriages
                      of time with the amethysts:
                           on the inside laughing with rubies,
                                nourishing themselves from lightning.

Because of this, traveler, pay attention
     to the hardships of the road,
          to mysteries on the walls.

I know this at great cost,
      that all life is not outward
           not all death within,
                and that the age writes letters
                     with water and stone for no one,
                           so that no one knows,
                                so that no one understands anything.