Guest Poet: Sandra Davies

A Stone for Effie

I know why
And could, therefore,
work out roughly when
but I cannot remember
where I collected this stone.

Seventy percent grey
(ninety when wet)
it was the heartbreaking
near-white markings
which spoke to me.

The qualities of line, stuttering,
the shapes, a trio converging
and circles not round but complete at last,
which echoed the one year wed,
three years awaited,
coming together,
in full hope of happy ever after.

I sought to duplicate the emotion,
to evoke by etching,
to commemorate the sad tragedy
of the fitting but unfitting death
in premature childbirth.
evidenced by the headstone
between two pines at Ymir.

© Sandra Davies 2011

Sandra Davies is an artist and printmaker and recently-emerged writer of fiction, with a long-established interest in family history. Born on the Essex coast, she now lives in Teesside in the north east of England, both places having the flat landscapes and sea-edged horizons considered essential for a sense of well-being.