Shore-stone with barnacles

Brought back from the beach and photographed on the garden seat round the cherry tree.

I looked up barnacles intending to write something pithy and interesting, only to find there are over 1200 species. Minefield.

So instead I began to imagine who had found this stone before me, had someone else touched it and what had they thought? Imagination much safer than fact, any day of the week, especially on a dreary Sunday.

a woman like me

she has danced
with the moon
she has seen the seal
surface and gaze
felt the fleeting touch
of connection

she has gazed
at the ocean
squinted (as she would
read books today) trying
to read its message

she has read the runes
left in the sand
by the ebb tide
and knows the waters
hold the secrets of change

she has held
this shore-stone
implanting a memory
for a woman like her
a woman like me
passing this way
in another time

©sue2011