Rocks
She joked with me each time we walked the woods:
“I think you have a problem with rocks,”
I was always eyeing up
A good slab of stone
To heft into a backpack
And dump onto the weed-infested garden slope.
I gathered them from all places:
The forest floor,
Shakemantle,
Next door’s dig site.
Sourced, arranged, hefted, shifted, repositioned
Until unkempt order was achieved.
Then: Sand, grit, soil and, finally flora:
Silene Schafta, Delosperma, Sedum spurium
coccineum,
Armeria maritima, Achillea tomentosa, Erodium
And their nicknames:
‘Alba’, ‘The Bride’, ‘Aurea’, ‘Bishop’s Form’
Names that grow and bloom
And now I observe them
Reaching for the sun
As my mind reaches for the derelict menhirs
Thudded down
with wishes to expand that world.
But the fissures in my bones can’t take that
strain.
They float so fragile
like shafts of Maritima
Snipped by sparrows.