ASTRA

Lava that met water and had no time to become stone.
It froze mid-thought.

Obsidian holds no crystal, no grain, no pattern —
only the memory of a sudden ending.

Not a stone at all.
Resin, that once ran down a trunk
and caught something on its way.

Amber is a moment that refused to end —
still warm, forty million years later.

Clarity is not a gift.
It is what remains after pressure —
after everything soft has been driven out.

The deeper it formed, the purer it reads.

Copper, left alone with air and water
long enough to change its mind.

Malachite is the colour of patience —
metal that learned to breathe.

Clouded, never clear.
The flaw inside it is what softens the light.

A perfect stone would only reflect.
This one holds.

The stone of dry places.
All day it takes in the sun
and says nothing.

Then evening comes,
and it gives everything back.

Neither violet nor grey.
It stops halfway and stays there.

Amethyst is the colour of not deciding —
which is its own kind of calm.

Veined, opaque, full.
Nothing about it is refined.

Jasper does not burn.
It holds heat the way earth does —
slowly, and for a long time.

Light does not sit on this stone.
It moves across it.

Tilt your head and the glow follows —
it answers where you are standing.