Hammerstone

by Geoff Daniel

At the shore site,
in the ruckle of stones    
where the long reach     
of the sea’s disposal meets
the scarp of dune, and land
comes to scree and fall,

we know old habitation
by the midden stain –
the hard brown sand a stratum,
split bone, shucked shell, residue;

there are relicts, laid courses   
emerging, homes hacked off    
by the elements, the mounds
of their burial bisected;

and the smaller finds:
cracked sherds, worked bone
and hammerstones, washed out
to be litter at your feet.

Here is one such:
a hammerstone
in the treacle-toffee brown
of hornblende porphyry:
dense and pocked,
volcanic, crystalline;    

a length of stone,
like a haft - irregular,     
pecked by knapping;
it lays in your fist
its cold heft, weight fitted
for work of another age.

Who found it first,     
and made the find a tool?
Whose palm ground it
smooth with oil of skin,
with their hand’s blood
worked a warmth in it?

Back into the machair
in a stone-wall kist
they went, to become
in the sands in time
their own dark stain,
chill litter of themselves.