The Pebble
It is a simple faith that
it keeps. It sits on the
bookcase now gathering dust,
holding to the memory of salt
water, waves, the horizon further
than the limits it endures,
the crusted, calloused hands
that carved the cross, stark,
white, patient in their work.
The one endures while the
other does not, but the tide
reveals this, the smooth,
unmarked sand, the offerings
it makes, disinterested in
the faith that placed a stone
purposefully, carefully, into
the care of an agnostic deep.
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Are These Blessings?
Are these blessings, curses?
With what would you weigh
one against the other?
The starlings' murmuration has
ceased. The time has come to
settle. Driven. These are the
things we cannot understand.
It will be a lonely spring without
the comfort of the longer nights
and shorter days to comfort us.
We are going our separate ways,
abandoned by the faith that once
kept us sound. But questioning still?
Yes, but only of the possibility
that a plan might yet be discerned
in the endurance of blossom budding,
pale, on a bare, brittle branch.
J.M. Summers was born and still lives in South Wales. Previous publication credits include Another Country from Gomer Press and numerous magazines / anthologies. The former editor of a number of small press magazines, he has published one book, Niamh, a collection of prose and poetry.
