burnishing stone

I have a small basket full of sacred stones,
shells, pieces of wood, artifacts, flotsam, dust

my favorite stone is nearly circular, deep green
with small yellow and white confetti markings
it is perfectly polished, smooth
and fits just into the center of the palm of my hand

it is a burnishing stone, I picked it up in Peru
on a hillside in the Casma River Valley in 1989
someone dropped it there, maybe 30 years ago,
maybe 3000 years ago
the stone won’t tell me its age or who held it

burnishing stones are polishing stones
used to rub the surfaces of pottery
until they shine and gleam
until they reflect rather than scatter light

god has been burnishing me this year
polishing my edges with a hard stone
it was rather a rough treatment, but now I begin to feel
my radiance, our radiance, light reflecting off all the mirrors,
all of your eyes, that I look into each day.