Skimming Stones

Even when we sit on your banks,

It is I.

They laugh and shove and play skimming stones.

Competition feeding their souls.

I see your flat rocks, shaped by

Time and patience and turmoil.

Counting not the slaps on your water's surface but the time aloft and free.

Their bikes, shiny and new,

Speed away, shredding as they go,

I stay and hear your plea,

As your water gently laps the shore.

Once you stood alone. Now the view from a double-glazed window in a steel-framed castle.

Please stay as you are. My quiet, my solace, my place to contemplate.

You protect me, I protect you.

You do not compare my insides to other people's outsides.