A way with words

I tried to make a path from stones and pebbles,

collected from the beach and carried home.

I chose them one by one from park and garden,

brushed off the soil, then placed them in a row

I piled them up, one rock upon another,

stood back and contemplated the effect;

the look and feel, the shifting shingle grouping,

a sometimes jagged sharpness that it left.

At first I hadn’t known they’d need containing;

their shapes and textures pleasing, smooth and round,

but then I sensed them knock against each other,

collide in changing contexts, shifting ground.

I saw them, trodden down and disappearing,

sink back into the earth from which they’d come.

I’d thought them mine; the world sought to reclaim them;

chiselling new meaning from the stone.

I tried again, I laid a holding membrane,

visited new sites, collected more.

Reordered, piled, and polished from my journey,

the treasures from each trip enriched my store

Until at last I’d made myself a pathway.

The pebbles came together underfoot.

Tho’ every now and then it shifted slightly

I’d found a road through words towards a truth.