PEBBLE GAME

When upon the surface of the earth

pebbles meet a pounding sea,

sit facing me and, eyes blindfold,

pick one and drop it in the space between

your pretty feet, my creaking knees.

 

We’ve played before, a simple game:

agree the duration of the hunt,

measured as the time it takes for, say,

three cycles of the breakers’ rush

from crashing crest to sucked-back dregs.

 

The aim to find the pebble cast

relying on mere touch and feel to

favour one you held just moments back;

no quackery here – just truth alone,

no stone has either twin or clone.

 

But rarely have we got it right –

so many pebbles so nearly the same,

and others prompting hurried choice.

Yet we may not deliberate ad aeternam –

more time sought is never given.

 

For the game has no conventional wins –

success a sideline to each play,

the pulsing sea the gauge of time;

and time the measure of intrinsic worth

in all the small things on this earth.

 

But twice the task confronting us,

when lessons quickly learned include:

with each crash of wave and swirl of brine,

the pebbles change, minutely smoothed,

so is the game now flawed or void?

 

So if, after casting down your stone,

the game not won nor time yet done,

a wave should flood where we would play,

as no pebble washed remains the same,

is that game over as that stone has gone?