Carved

by Patricia McCaw

Buried beneath the daily news feeds
lies a substratum of archaeological findings,
like today's discovery in a Scottish river

of unworked stone, complete with triple disc,
crossbar, mirror, notched rectangle
and two internal spirals. Pictish.

A memory surfaces, of Dad, a year before
his funeral, examining a rock on our home
beach across the shortest sea route to Scotland.

I'm tracing sand with my foot, trying to create
patterns, and I see how the papery soles of his shoes
are being sucked by the sand into moulds.

His face is alight, born again with discovery.
These are markings, I'm telling you,
workings in the rocks by ancient men.

His fingers, rarely keen on human contact
touch the grooves and whorls as if they're in love
with stone, and at last his hazel eyes

make hopeful contact with mine.
But I can only see damage from impact,
erosion, with no meaning or lineage.

Yet today, I'm willing to accept new findings,
trusting in strangers who've come from afar,
not believing in the words of my source.

How I wish that just once, I'd looked closer,
read the runes and placed the ear of my heart
to  the stone of deep time.