WHITE STONES

 

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I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.

-Revelation 2, 17

 

 

 

I laid him down in summer grass, turned back 

and he was gone—a wish of dandelion seeds 

scattering on the breeze. My child, lost. 

Wild as wolf I tore, deep into the trees, 

 

passing one hundred times or more the place 

he disappeared. Weep, they say, Bean Nighe is here

to wash his clothes, mark the Sìthean where last he lay

for grief must also die. But he lives

 

I know, for my breasts still ache to nurse, 

though now the grass is dead and winter steeps 

the Earth. Listen, by trail of laughter he was led, 

over mossy buds of dew, plucked, as an aster 

 

from its bed, by one of the faeries’ brood.  

But, in my dreams it is the hour of his first year, 

I call his name and he appears among the snowdrops, 

fat and merry too young to know the seasons of our parting, 

 

the agony. I pray they feed him milk of nettle, 

nectar of the honeysuckle, teach him language 

of the bees who shuttle secrets on the breeze; 

when they play his favourite game, hide-and-seek,  

 

may they guard the spears of hawthorn trees, 

the mouth of otter’s burrow, ‘til at last they find him, 

feigning sleep, nestled in a bed of clover, crying 

Mother under brims of amanita, tall and white.    

 

Darling, dressed now in gossamer and fern, 

are you cradled in the Queen’s lap, has she claimed you

as her own? Clapping to the rhythm of the chant,

do they dance you asleep ‘til dawn, to lie upon the dirt?

 

So beguiled by their lutes, would you return 

if you had the choice, if I found your stone 

and broke the curse—would yet you know 

the sound of your mother’s voice?

 

Or were you tricked, my child, by the fullness

of the moon to surrender the name I gave you? 

For I have worn the path between these oaks, 

every boulder and mossy stump mapped

 

to the black curtain of mind, searching for a sign

of your whereabouts, crying out until I am raw

and all that’s left is to dredge stones along the beach, 

wait on the tide, listen for your call. 

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BIO:

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​Amanda Merritt lives and works on the unceded Coast Salish Territory of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ nations. Her debut collection The Divining Pool was shortlisted for the 2018 Gerald Lampert Memorial award. Presently she is working to make creative writing an accessible, healing medium for those who are drawn to the page. 

 

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