Leaf 303 – Reflections
One of the things which has
always fascinated me about Cornwall in the far southwest of Britain is its
geology. The scent of stone and vegetation carried by the sea air is delicious
whatever the weather’s mood might be (see, Leaf 219). From dusty iron-stained
slate to rugged grey granite, seaside cottages with stout and sturdy walls
built of the latter and roofed with the former, all the way back to the
prehistoric dolmens and stone circles, to the moorlands dotted with boulders
and tors, and beaches heaped with round, sea-smoothed pebbles – stone in one
form or another seems to be everywhere in Cornwall. The following poem was
written with a standing stone, known locally as the Blind Fiddler, in mind.
Gazing closely at its pitted surface, splashed with dry, encrusted colours like
a painter’s neglected palette – it appears like another world, tropical and alien; like
some other, far-away planet defined in microcosm. It’s impossible not to think
of time, in terms of its unfathomable span, whether pondering relatively recent
prehistory or winding the cycles of the Earth’s geological clock back far
farther still, as something beyond our ken, but intimately akin to all that we
are: stones and stardust, or bones and boulder-rust, transmuted by slow time.
A close bond
etched over centuries –
lichen covered rock.
