The Sea Stone

The stone is weather beaten,
Made smooth by the wind,
The once jagged edges
Of that pearl moon rock,
Tossed gently at the fingertips of the tide
As they touch the toes of the shore.
It is the milk stone,
A face among sand,
Touched lightly by rain
And shaped by the violence
Of waves …
Yet colored by the calm
Of foggy days,
And the lusty harmonies of sea birds
And sand foxes,
With their alien screams;
Oh,
How the stone shivers
At the sound of their voices…
Those lonely foxes,
Calling to the sea.

But it is handed away
Spending time in window sills,
And pockets,
And little garden circles;
A piece of trapped beauty
A stone with a heart beat
A stone with a soul…
Of the sorrows and the joys
Of her eternal shore;
And it thinks here
Away from her rhythm,
It watches, observes,
In solitude it listens,
But it cannot stay.
For she pulls it back,
A trinket of the sea
A jewel of her brooch
A dove-white thread
Upon the hem of her gown,
A moon rock,
A piece of the sky
Or an earthly star
On its earnest journey
Back to her sea foam shores.

—Melanie Walker