They are never so beautiful as now:
lustrous with light and water,
a succession of small startles
shining in the dun matt sand.
Blown bubbles wander up
from the waveline, skate on waterfilm
which holds the piebald sky,
the adolescent April sun.
I walk on blue-white heavens.
I bend to prize up a pebble,
wipe wet sand from its underside.
This is my stone: a faded brown
with a perfect circle of grey
at one end, it’s rough-smooth
like an egg, a perfect palm fit—
cool and comforting and sure.
Into my sagging pocket it goes.
At home, it will sit with others
in the bowl on the windowsill:
dry dull, sometimes dusted,
no longer recalling me to where I was,
or when, but only a reminder
that I have inhabited my days; and that
nothing is ever so beautiful as now.
Lucy Crispin is a former Poet Laureate of South Cumbria. Her work has appeared in Envoi, The Salopian, Literary Oxygen, Poetry Cornwall, The Quiet Feather, Allegro, Eildon Tree and Poetic Licence as well as in various anthologies. She works freelance for the Wordsworth Trust and as a person-centred counsellor and facilitator.