Stones

by

Helen Symes

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There were many stones one summer.
Picked up on the beach in the Gaspé and St. Martin's.
Maybe an agate in the Gaspé
It was never cut
So I do not know.
We carried them in little space
In the trunk of the car
Squashed in among the camping things.
They were placed in a locker in a Cornwall apartment building.
They were moved again to two other basements
And finally they spent five years in our garage
At the back of the house on Bedford Street
Where we left most of them when the job was lost
And the trek to Alberta began.
I still have a few now.
Five or six survivors of the three more moves
This time from three bedrooms to two to a single room and a kitchen.
Five stones are perched in flower pots.
Again a change, from twenty pots to six
I hold the last stone in my hand now
And wonder where to put it.
It has a sheen still of oceans and endless beach
Where they had plenty of room to move and grow
And to embed themselves in the sand so that finding them was a joy.
They speak not at all of the five deaths that have passed
Since they were picked from the shore
The changes in my life
Are nothing to them either
Perhaps just one pitted spot on the shiny surface of one stone.