You stand at the entrance

to the ring cairn

hills in front of you

hills behind you

crows flying overhead

water at your feet

and not a star to be seen.

In your right hand

are the unmade things

in your left hand

are the broken things

and in between

the constant process

of becoming

and unbecoming.

You turn the round stone over in your pocket, giving it your heat

you know it contains magic

but if it’s good or bad you don’t know, yet.

Over the moor

you thought you saw

three men, walking east,

but you don’t know what it meant.

You think they might be going to the swimming spot

or the alpaca farm

and they looked like they were having a hard time

travelling slowly, mostly at night,

following something that you can’t see,

that you don’t understand.

The stone is inevitable, small enough to be swallowed,

big enough to block a windpipe,

it will taste of mint: spearmint, not that other kind

And there’s a hare

in the form of an owl

in the form of a hare

one eye a round stone

ears twitching in

the digital rain

feathers disrupted by

the analogue wind

as it takes one for the rook

takes one for the crow

knowing one will wither

(the other will grow).

It is bathing in bright light

The valley,

shedding itself of decoration,

is full of light.

Light you’ve seen before, somewhere,

but can’t quite place.

The stone is a small moon, a moon rock, moonstone,

like those you saw in the library that time

anorthosite, breccia, basalt

Here, outside, you

are walking the boundary, in the rain.

The rain that you so resented

but came to accept as your muse:

it only and always ever has been the rain

which you reluctantly walked in,

zipped up, in

a waterproof with leaking seams.

This sodden ground,

this beautiful, sodden ground,

collapsed, futureless,

makes you want to sing

songs about primroses

about small birds

about how you came to find yourself

wet-footed, empty-headed, and

miles from the nearest wood.

You turn the moon over in your pocket, giving it your heat

it is chalky, archival

reflects nothing and tastes of nothing, just air, just water.