The Gypsies Poem by Gert Strydom

You believed in the power
of rock crystals
and there were people
selling and displaying them
on rows of tables
in Brooklyn shopping mall.

Like mages they would discuss
the powers locked into
the stones,
but to me they were only rocks
of various types and colours,
and a just a group of gypsies
selling their wares.

Some old people
even bought some
believing in healing properties
for arthritis

and going along
I let you buy me a brown one
with strips of quartz running
with white lines right through it
and still it just another rock to me.