Pebble

On a Cornish beach
you were one-in-a-million
sea's minion,
stashed in a salt jungle
of shifting shingle,
seaweed-draped,
rubbish-dumped,
wind-stung stooge
of the tide. 

In Robin's inland room,
where the sea roars only
in the Uxbridge Road,
you preen in paperweight pride,
your polished sheen
enshrined for its tiger-stripe
astonishment;
no more the common mottling
of trodden underling,
or scullion of sea-fling,
but unique art objet now.

In my dandling hand
you are Danegelt, heart's root,
gull-swoop, high tide.
You blow me the down-wind
stink of Cornish mackerel;
you show me the shift
of Celtic compromise.
You are the fossilised,
Medusa-enchanted heartbeat
of the old West Wealas.
You make the mud-and-sand
magic of Robin's
stone-warm eyes.