Starfish to Flint

Starfish to flint, flint tool

to Swiss army knife,

took a very long time.

I would never find the geology

(of you and me.)

I like to go back to rock

to feel something weighty;

fossil, shell or crystal treasure

for my knapsack, torch, and map:

jammed, always on the return,

it’s April 1980.

Bus. Bell. The long walk back.

I had unlocked co-ordinates;

handed guidebooks to time travellers,

burnt charts on bonfires to make stars to see by.

I’d waited for a better signal

at the intersection. All in vain.

It was a matter of precipitation –

the complicated falling of rain.