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TEXT FOR A SCATTERING
Nickel
ore from
New Caledonia
Iron ore from Bourail District
bottled in glass for the sour stomachs
the heartburn of soldiers
Coral from the South Pacific
a circle of islands
*
Ironsand
in hollow bamboo stalactite
from Waitomo
talc from the Routeburn written
in red chinagraph
his map of routes
the wave he walked on
sedimentary over mica schist
his children born there
where they were making the dam
rock crystal from the clay pit at Coal Creek
quartzite
from Wanaka pebbles
a handful of islands
*
Flint
from Kentish fields
dark
as a breaking wave an
English spring
Hornstone
from
Lyme
Bay
music
the sailors love
to dance the waves we jumped to
Oolitic
limestone fish eggs
from the Cotswolds
yellow cream as cakes
from Archibald’s in Oban
peat in a paper bag
pebbled
sandstone from Stac Pollaidh
Basalt from Troternish
quartz flowering
in it
pebble
of gabbro, Black Cuillin
a piece of Skye a
blue ribbon a
childhood
*
Modified
granite from Botallack mine
A black stone wrapped in paper
a woman’s name
This from years later the
end, almost, of a marriage
Granite from Lamorna buried
windows
*
Broken
coral rock debris
pebbles
London
clay from a tunnel heading below
St Paul
’s
Iron
ore from Swedish Lapland
Gneiss from Great Bernera
Schist from Easdale flat,
with nail heads
Millstone
grit Great Scar
limestone
a yellow glue mark on granite
a lost label
All we can’t know
*
Speckled andesite,
English
Lakes
from their first Christmas in
England
winter thrush now among berries
but green snow
scattered
Haematite
from Ruddy Gill
Green slate from Watendlath
Slate from Honister a
trace of ink
petrified flecks of label
Slate
from Rough Edge, below Kirkstone
his scattered ashes
*
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