Georgian Bay Meditation Poem by Nan Williamson

georgian bay meditation


Rosy granite, dark-veined
feldspar flecked black,
gleaming splash of milky quartz,
angular stones drawn by glaciers,
fractured and scraped,
rounded by sand and waves,
rocky abstractions milled from the Shield.

I choose your birthday token
from this gritty northern shore,
place in your veined hand
a ruddy gold-streaked story-
older than language, than love.
Dark green bands of igneous rock,
orange lichen dropped like paint.
Jack pines clutch at crevices,
jagged branches growing all one way.

In the bay, shifting hues: cobalt,
steel grey, and thin, bitter spume
snap at the scudding sky;
Waves slap against the stones,
retreat, return; the rhythm lasts
all afternoon - or our whole lives.
What's left is little time
to understand it all, beginning
with these ancient traces on the shore.