Cairn

Inner fire
 [ ... ]

I dwell in loss,
a shell of what I was,
a bivalve, petrified and pale.
My hinge, the centre of the pebble,
I am a door to the past,
a butterfly, cast
against a flinty sky.
Look back
and turn with me.

On the wintry shingle, waxy chalcedony,
with a pocket of absent calcite,
your iron-tight hold on a honey glow;
on the lonely shore you might have stayed,
but your diamond-shape of agate
catches my eye.

Once upon a riverbed,
once upon a delta-stage,
a flood plane grew a skin of rust,
as red as red; before it folded,
scooped and quarried, lost
to palaces and echoes, arches.

I dropped it in the night
and heard: no need to hold so tight
everything you need is yours,
set already with the stars