For the word stringer with the greatest cache of beautiful beads

And so the sun stared down
Our backs, and we, hunched, focussed,
Counted out our beads, piled in glassy hives of
Beautiful colours,
Puce,
Amber,
Viridian,
Teal.

And so we strung a pattern, a story, with our
small glass beads.

But as always, he
Sat apart, slightly turned, and
Only when he revealed the final
Scintillating, labyrinthine pattern,
Only when his smile
Resonated in a thousand facets of light from
The resplendent rosary he held aloft,
Adorned with a myriad of stones,
Large, small, beautiful, all--

Only then
Did we acknowledge ourselves mere dilettantes.