The Singing Stone - For Helen
Shore walking, heron-hunched, so long now;
the youngest reckoned,
at first, it was about
filling my coat with grasps of sea grit, weed
and pebble; until
they found a sailor's pearl,
a fairy shield, could tell a cowrie from a unicorn
and flint
charms, which the sea, for good luck
had softened and sucked its way clean through.
This
late winter brings a singing stone
from under the storm down Dunwich way;
a squat
grail, half-tunnelled, whose secret eye
sings to my second breath, a frail note
of elfin song, higher than
wash of waves;
like instant silver, drawn from its dull ore
gleaming sea-bright
in the falling shade.
Mike Bannister