Our eldest brings stones
And sticks home from the park.
Bits of grit, lumps of gravel,
Marbled pebbles, tiny rocks;
Indiscriminately selected twigs;
Branches, feathers; lichen, bark.
What will grow from this stony rubbish?
He cannot know or say, though each
For him is as a curate’s egg,
Growing the small, neglected stack
In the corner of our porch
Where leaves and cobwebs collect.
A broken nest. A disturbed cairn.
A stone age ruin. Signifiers
Of his untroubled realm:
A time without rules, or doubt,
Cruelty, or loss - where things,
Like names, do no harm
And all his days voyages of discovery
Through those secret places close to home.