The Rocks

A boulder gateway flanked by patchy grass

began the tarmaced car-park behind

the house. I smell the hot bitumen

they burned for re-surfacing: black glar

fuming the throat; the suck of shoe-soles

on still-setting tack. I hear the slap

of trainers leap-frogging clustered lumps

on playful dares to get from here to there -

the teeter on granite slab then leap of faith.

Glacigenic erratics, Midlandian moraine -

your polished quartz is a glint in time.

When my ice-age melts, I jump the years

to land on permanent shale and solid rest.

Your isotopes are through and through me:

their half-life clicks my Geiger counter.