RockStanza.Info - Brochs of Shetland

SERMONS FROM STONES

1

Above all things, they valued stone
as handholds on cliff-faces,
or building boundaries and borders,
fixing foundations for their feet

A tool to grind or hammer.
Shelter and protection.
A store where autumn’s harvest could be stored,
providing for their winter.

Decoration, too, for land
shorn of colour by salt and wind.
Grey clench of rock in heather.
The pointing finger of a standing stone.

Hues and shades of pebbles
waves dash upon the shoreline,
showering unexpected petals
of roses, snowdrops, other flowers

Plucked and rolled by tides
that powering back and forward
allow these stones to roar,
and exalt each storm with thunder

As they try to break the bondage
they have long resented -
their confinement on the edge of land,
their servitude of men.