Wednesday 30 March 2011

Written in Stone


I made this collage of my poem Written in Stone as a gift for a friend. It's made from paper torn from magazines and an old manuscript of the poem. The frame was second hand.


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Written in Stone


A stony beach hard on my feet,

a restless sea, green, grey, brown,

splashes of white where ocean waves

meet rocky outcrops, tiny islands.

Here the veil is thin between

earth and heaven, eternity.


Sheep, regardless, eat the seaweed

stranded on the strandline.

This the beach Columba landed,

stones are sacred, water holy.

Bow your head, take off your shoes,

walk on sacred ground.


Among the pebbles, one stands out,

a pretty, pinky marbled grey

with two meandering veins of white

right angled in a central cross –

random chance of nature’s craft or

blessing from Columba?


inspired by a stone I found on a beach on Iona


as ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

18 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

I have no idea why but Blogger these days is being really difficuly when I try to use line spacing in poems - any tips?

Forthvalley scribe said...

That is a really great idea! I haven't had any problems with line spacing myself.

Gillena Cox said...

nice poem Juliet

much love...

none said...

I love that poem and your artwork!! You are truly talented, Juliet.

Geoffrey Philp said...

Simply beautiful, Crafty

Dr. Cheryl Carvajal said...

Nice stuff!

No good of you to make something so personal, too. Beats a gift card any day!

Larry Kollar said...

It probably has something to do with your template. You might want to try switching to HTML editing (the tabs on the right, just above the box where you type your entry) and type in your lines the way you want them, then switch back to Compose.

But I really wanted to say I liked this poem a lot — easily my favorite in recent memory. I can almost see the beach and can imagine the stone being Columba's blessing.

Unknown said...

Lovely. Makes me long for a day at the beach.

Lucy said...

Iona is such a special place. I still have the treasures I found there on display: tiny ridged cowrie shells mixed up with those of yellow winkles, a basket of greenstone pebbles, including one with a cross carved roughly into it bought from a shorefront cottage (the rest I found), and an eider duck's skull. I'll go back there one day.

It's a lovely poem and a super collage, what a great idea!

Christina said...

Love the poem and the collage

JoMo said...

Love your collage & the words too. Lovely!

As for blogger, I've found cutting and pasting text causes all sorts of formatting problems... not sure if that is what's causing your spacing issues nor not...you could check the html and add the line breaks & spacing manually there to see if that clears it up. Other than that, cursing at the screen helps a bit, not with formatting generally, but it's worth a go :)

Cheers,
Jo

Gabrielle Bryden said...

Love your framed collage. The poem is wonderful Dreamy and magical - in words and pacing.

bunnits said...

Neat!

I'm no help with Blogger and am having my own problems with it today. Good luck.

Caroline Gill said...

What a beautiful gift. The words, frame and collage complement one another so well. Oh to be in Columba territory!

Carver said...

I love the poem and also the collage you made.

Energy saving ideas said...

Well written, and the idea of eco-friendly frame is very nice. We all must start putting our efforts for a greener future.

Karen M said...

LOve this poem. It has the melancholy feel that the sea can bring sometimes.....

Ambiguitylotus said...

Your friend is lucky to have such a beautiful gift! I thoroughly enjoyed your poem and collage! :) Now I want to make more collages. I was making them earlier this year until school got me really busy.