PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

"It's just a stone,  

Eight inches long, double tapered, round in section.  

Not broken, but showing signs of heavy use in the hard sharp sandstone.  

It's of no archaeological value" he said "quite impossible to date."

We found a dozen like it when we walked the fresh furrows of the Glebe meadow.  

Mostly broken, others lost, or discarded,  

Like the centuries old rhythm of stone on steel.  

In the shelter and shade of the great southern hedge,  

We found: pot shards from old drinking vessels,  

Some soda glass, bone and wooden buttons, a buckle and a few, very few, small coin.  

The winding hedge, in its variety, helped date the field,  

"Mid Saxon," they said.  

"It was twice as big in Domesday."

Now I take the stone from my pocket and set it to the steel  

I'm glad that I found it, it sits well.  

Wading, waist deep, in the now rank and sour smelling headland,  

I carve the acrid, iron rich nettles,  

For the gently waiting Charolais.  

I lost my own stone in the meadow last year.