The Pebble Museum

Since 2008

Each mountain, groweth from a seed;
Each cloud, its fecund germ.
All things have their kernel core:
A Snowball,
A Tornado,
The Snail’s Shell,
The Sun.
Peel back the crust, unfold the mantle;
The heart forever holds
A small, round stone.

1.
Rock of dust
Worn by turns
In the hand
Of the infinite.

2.
All things they are both old and young -
Here, the lesson, sit and listen
To the turning, rattled waves -
They pull their quarry from the beaches
With each successive tidal tongue
They cut each stone to sand

And by the sluice, the river
Black among the roughs, the buffs and greys -
I find a pebble in its delta’d hand
Stick pried from the stream of eons
Thumb rubbed dry for its colours
Then pocket dropped -
Clacked atop a second rounded pick.

I cannot know the stone it was,
But know its density of age by touch -
Found it like I'd found a child
Found its comfort blindly
In communion with that that's not myself.
My hand blindly found its comfort
Quickened and yet ocean drowned.

Every pebble’s made of patience,
Until it's moment, stays a stone.
A rock among them all -
Who, by dint of chance or luminescent will,
Met me. Met I, upon the shore.
Inscrutable, uncountable, hidden radience;
Eternities unknown.

Behold and savour
All that may be round and held
In the comfort of a small round stone.

Graeme Walker, 2019-2026