Memento

Memento

Doing some (rather late) spring cleaning the other day,  I noticed the pile of stones I keep as an ornament in the bathroom. They were covered with dust and needed a good clean to reveal their full beauty.  The poem came out as a series of waves,  which seems appropriate.

On the shelf
A plate of stones
Chosen from thousands
On sand and pebble beaches
Picked out and saved as special
Each one designed to prompt a memory
Of otherwise long forgotten, leisurely days.

Every now and then,
Washing off their coat of dust
Reveals their secret hidden beauty,
The reason they were stuffed into pockets,
When others, less deserving, dropped back onto the beach.

Shapes smoothed
By pounding waves at the land's edge
Revealing stripes, spots, marbling, speckles
Pearly pink, sandy beige, granite grey, and black,
Large pebbles fitting snugly in the palm of a hand
Small stones worn down faster, or over longer ages,
All glisten in the water, dulling down to dry solidity,
Sorted and stacked into a pyramid, heavy with memories.



© Copyright 2019. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leave taking

I've been to two funerals recently. I suppose it's inevitable that their frequency will increase as I get older,  and my peer group ages alongside me.  It makes you consider your own mortality, and prompts a resolve to use the days left to you more wisely.  But somehow you never do, preferring to think there's still enough time left.   The death of an elderly uncle is easier to bear. It's possible to reflect on a long life, well lived,  To remember the fun you had when you were small, How he made you shriek until you were breathless,  To consider the grace of his faith, which eased his end.  The death of my sunny, fun-filled friend Is much harder to balance. We are all too aware She had too few years to enjoy her joyful take on life,  Will miss out on too many evenings full of laughter,  No longer guide her grandchildren into adulthood. Both deaths celebrated as a release from pain.  Both lives celebrated as lives lived well.  We carry their memories home with us,   To
Read more

Dont go to India

I wrote this after a toilet stop in the way from Jaipur to Varaneeshya.  Don't go to India  not if you worry about squatting over a hole in the ground, with no running water. not if you worry about hawkers thrusting their wares in your face, "300, 200, 100 only". not if you worry about children caked in street filth, tugging at your sleeve, your heart. not if you worry about rubbish, plastic bottles, bags, packaging, strewn across the streets. But if you can make peace with all that  you will find beauty wherever you look. ©  Copyright 2023. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved
Read more

Lady Godiva Reveals All

Day 30: ' write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend, as in  Claire Scott’s poem “ Scheherazade at the Doctor’s Office .”' Final day! A mixture of relief and disappointment - I shall miss these challenges that wake up the brain and take it down unexpected passageways, but I must admit I'm feeling a little weary.  For today's effort I'm choosing to write in the voice of Lady Godiva, a body positive role model if ever there was!  Of course, I wasn't actually naked. Do you really think I'd parade around Coventry Without a stitch to cover my embarrassment? I may have been cross at Leofric's greed In overtaxing the good people of that town,  But even to fulfill my side of his extraordinary bargain I wasn't about to expose my tender rump To the coarse swaying of my horse!   I wore a secret garment fashioned from the finest silk,  Dyed the colour of my pale, highborn skin,  Cunningly sewn by my dear
Read more