Stones

Isn't it amazing, the tiny things that will trigger a mind to start writing a post? They can be so convoluted - at least, if you are as odd as me.

No.1 daughter only teaches three days a week, so yesterday we could indulge in a gossipy phone call, as she related the joys of a morning's shopping in Ikea. I listened to her enthuse over several items she'd found for her 'present drawer', a stockpile of ready-to-give gifts, collected at leisure and designed to make last minute, frantic searches a thing of the past. Then she started telling me about some bags of stones she'd bought for some school project or other.

"I got some this size, Ma (shakeshake, rattly-shush) and another lot this big (clankclank rolly-clatter). See the difference?" she asked. At this point, we both burst out laughing! Who else would ask me if I could 'see' the difference over a 'phone, and who else would have been able to do it?! (Well, apart from No.1 son who was part and parcel of the same mad growing up surroundings as his sister.)

It was perfectly plain to see, inside my mind, the variation in size that matched the variation in sound as my ears translated the shaking of the stones into pictures.

So as I sat at the keyboard just now, after sorting the morning emails, and began wondering what a I'd write about, the sound-picture of those pebbles gave me my subject - as well as today's poem.

Pebble Paradise

Stones on a beach, glowing wet;
muted colours the shades of nature, yet
gleaming like jewels in the salt laden air.
Rich, crunching carpet spread at your feet,
reflecting bright shafts of the sunshine's glare
in seawater droplets soon to dry in the heat.

Children gather the pebbles with shouts of glee
at the brilliant colours they think they see -
though the lustre is fleeting; colours soon dim
as they dry, salt coated stones picked up on a whim.

But then, like a miracle, the dullest small stone
in the hands of a craftsman can come into its own.
When tumbled and polished its secret unfolds
to delight us once more with the beauty it holds.