He learned it while shipwrecked, alone and floating in the sea. The waves dispersed most of the flotsam but he managed to save a few items aboard his tiny lifeboat. After he realized rescue and survival were directly correlated to his patience, he settled into the small vessel and began plying his trade while drifting over the mostly calm seas. He got most of his work done in the evenings when the setting sun illuminated all the diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other precious stones floating on the waves

        As luck would have it, he ended up in the Mediterranean where a fishing vessel snared his lifeboat in their nets.Imagine their surprise in finding his little dinghy riding low in the water because of all the jewels!

        They took him back to their island where he continued practicing the trade he learned while drifting far and wide. Year after year he fashioned the most beautifully cut stones into jewelry. To this day, how he harvested them from the waves remains unknown. Even the modest woman he took as his wife was oblivious to his trade which came to him so naturally after a maritime disaster.

Green tomatoes
Bronze greaves
Tambourine sounds
Tobacco leaves
Purring cats
Silver tooth
Broken bats
Corner booth
Barking hounds
Rusted wagon
Blue Play-Doh
Fire dragon

A beautiful lady in the field did rise,
Sitting tall in the November grass she rubbed her eyes.
Where has the summer gone she thought?
I don’t want to be where the Sun’s not.

Stunned and startled she looked all around.
Where went all the people, from where came that sound?
The sky rolling gray, a sight to behold,
The last light on Earth was her gown of gold.

Garbed she was in an intricate dress,
Her radiance more stunning than an empress.
Her arms thrust backward into the night,
Her head looking upward cast out a light.

Her passion so obvious, her angst so deep,
She called to the gods to rouse them from sleep.
All around loomed uncertainty and creatures of lore,
But where were the gods, were they too no more?

Sullen she sank to the ground and the frost.
Empty she felt, all alone and lost.
Then in the distance again a faint sound.
A pipe organ moaned, as its keys were pound.

At once on her feet she decided to go.
Down at that cathedral someone will know.
Thus in the last light of dusk she did hasten,
To the building of spires crafted by mason.

Stumbling and weary, now alone in the night;
The façade of the cathedral a horrific sight.
It cast a fierce shadow down on the street,
Not until at the portal did she stop her feet.

She pressed her body against the bronze door,
Out came a creek from the land of evermore.
Slowly a light from within was revealed.
The source in the distance, a candle concealed.

Passionate was the melody, its owner quite savage.
His back to the lady, the keyboard he ravaged.
Centuries of pain left each of his fingertips.
The music like knives brought blood to her lips.

Gathering herself she moved toward the light.
The sound of her steps the music did fight.
Eventually the melody held her at bay.
It revealed that her struggle would end with this day…

She stood alone in the nave, frozen in time.
Eternity was her ally, perfection her crime.
Yet absent in this extraordinary building of stone,
Were the elements of control…God’s earthly throne.

The starkness unusual, the darkness so deep,
The realization like fog around her did creep.
She squint her eyes and peered into the night,
She stretched out her arms into certain blight.

At last from her mind came the words she forgot:
Things which are, be less mighty than things which are not.
When into the shadows she was pulled by a feeling,
There she encountered a man quietly kneeling.

A young man, a sad man, a knight all-alone.
Every feature was detailed in eternal, solid stone.
How long had he been there? Who could he be?
A creature so sad, a person longing to be free.
His expression so real, his plight sculpted so true,
She wondered if it was he with whom her conscience was two.

In the last flickering of light that came from the candle,
The statue lifted his head and touched her leather sandal.
He struggled to speak, on his cheek a tear shone.
The music rose to a crescendo as the organ did groan.
Mercilessly the notes pounded and his body did fight.
Who in hell or on earth could deserve such a plight?

The music still roaring shook his stolid form,
Eventually his hand crumbled in the noise storm.
With each and every measure her sympathy grew,
And quickly turned to anger which boiled like stew.
She searched ferociously until a piece of marble she found,
Then hurled it blindly in the direction of that fatal sound.

Dense though it was, the marble flew through the air.
It had a trail like a comet and burned like a flare.
In a crash it was gone, the stained glass fell like rain.
The music was no more, the song died in vain.

The morning soon came as the sun broke the East.
The cathedral stood lifeless, a lonely, solemn beast.
Days came and went with nary a whisper.
The cruciform lay open, the mist grew even thicker.

Years past and the townsfolk spread the legend,
The story of a man and a woman rebuked by Heaven.
Love is their legacy, our reality their trial,
Combined passion so intense, hated destiny they did defile.