The physiognomy of stones

I can remember my first;

bronzed, in the shape of a closed hand,

taken from the inner wall of the sleeping hall

when the old single storey house was demolished

to make way for a new, modern structure,

three floors high – the tallest in the village -

looking out across my grandfather’s farm lands.

In that stone were captured my first five years:

the climb to the saddhu’s cave

where he gave me my name;

the rain beating on my mother’s back

as she planted rice thigh deep in mud;

the raw sugar left under my pillow;

the snakebite on the way back from trick and treat;

my cousin trying to sit on my as yet unsexed penis –

a parting gift, she said, to remind me of her when I was gone;

and the image of my grandmother, standing on the tarmac,

trying to hide the sadness of the parting, stripped gaunt,

as the bus drove my mother and I to the waiting plane.

I have not fathomed yet the mystery of this stone,

this keeper of memories,

but it has been joined, in my antique chest, by others,

each one a discerning host;

this here, amber and gold,

a ripening apple,

now smoothed beneath my longing fingers,

reminding me of the first time I saw you

curved by the Irish wind,

on the other side of the road,

coat, a driven sail,

lines reaching back into the past,

to the outstretched hand of my grandmother,

the yearning of her full heart,

and I knew you would make me whole;

this stone holds that chapter,

its companions safeguarding our continuing stories.