Pulse of a Stone

 

Pulse of a stone

 

I thought I had something to say about all this;

the trip, our early return to bury your mother,

the worn state of our marriage,

myself as a dreamed of boy,

the meaning of that Tracey Emin piece.

 

We took our camper home with us those weeks,

packing up and moving on each few days

the children falling from their beds

if we were not careful and tied them down.

We drove like crazy through our childhood south coast haunts.

 

The children collected fossils, prised them out.

When had we agreed to give them small knives?

I cannot recollect. The care they must have taken.

Ammonites they found. I do not recall the walk away,

or understand how I wandered so far into the offing.

 

I met a stone in the toss and turn of a shallow pool.

It spun and pulsed, red then grey, held by forces.

Nature’s grip; gravity, friction, energy, (was it?)

The sea in leaving returning in the act of going.

My feet sinking as if the ground was dissolving.