Sharon Black’s poem considers the humble stone and its ability to tell its story through shape and form. Illustration by Stu Loxley.

I throw a stone far across the river,
it plops and flits a lazy zigzag to its bed
where, tired from so much unexpected travelling,
I like to think it sinks its twinkling head.

I skim a stone across this glassy surface
it pirouettes across its watery stage
then at the rousing, crowd-pleasing finale
it bows below into its curtained cage.

I drop a stone into the rippling contours
of feet steeped deep in sands of shale and weeds
it casts aside its dull and grainy mantle
for a cloak of dragonflies and silvery reeds.

I take a stone and hold it in my palm
it presses smooth and cool across my veins,
like an eye it holds the secrets of the river
and the dying of the rock beneath the rains.

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