IONA MARBLE
I no longer have this stone. It was given to me years ago and I was very pleased indeed to receive it. I can no longer remember who gave it to me, but for some years it was my favourite one. I cannot remember who I then gave it to in turn or why. I like it when I find pieces of writing that are not about mental illness, they remind me that my life is about so much more than that.
IONA MARBLE
Reflections on a stone
1.
If memory is like a stone
If each moment is an extra pebble on the cairn of our past
If memory is like a stone
I don’t want it
I don’t want the brute rock solidity.
I want my memories to dissolve and swim with the rivers to the sea.
2.
I stare at my stone
At the smooth curve of the yellow quartz
With its fat, green, speckled webbing.
I look at the cross carved on it.
I look at the cross and think how new meanings can come out of old certainties.
3.
I look at the rocks
That litter the bottom of a steep cliff,
Detritus of frost and fierce winds
I think of boulders that crash heavily to the earth.
To the side of the cliff is a shelter made out of the scree
For when the winter is harsh and we are all lost in the wild weather.
4.
I look at my rock again
And I imagine it in the ocean
Forming a base for seaweed strands
That flow and ripple
And change shape and direction
With the current and tide and time
Creating new memories and new stories
And new versions of old histories
02 01 12
(Photo: Drift wood, pebble and bottle stopper from Ardmore, some of the small treasures with which I line my book shelves. Jan 2021)
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