Georgian Bay Meditation
Rosy granite, dark veined
Rosy granite, dark veined
feldspar flecked with black,
gleaming splash of milky quartz,
angular stones drawn by glaciers,
fractured and scraped,
rounded by sand and waves,
rocky abstractions milled from the Shield
I chose your birthday token
from the gritty northern shore,
place in your veined hand
a ruddy gold-streaked story-
older than language, than love.
Dark green bands of igneous rock,
orange lichen dropped like paint.
Jack pines clutch at crevices,
jagged branches growing all one way.
In the bay, shifting hues: cobalt,
steel grey. And thin, bitter spume
snaps at the scudding sky;
Waves slap against stone,
retreat, return, the rhythm lasts
all afternoon - or our whole lives.
What's left is little time
to understand it all, beginning
with these ancient traces of shore.
Nan Williamson
from a book of her poetry leave the door open for the moon
Drawing also by Nan Williamson
