Stone (plucked from a river bed)

 You were the wet, gleaming mottled stone that I plucked from the riverbed.

Like souvenirs past, I thought you solely beautiful, precious and solely for me.

I added you to my collection of finds and looked fondly at you.

Like the others, over time, you lost your unique gleam.

I spent less time taking you in and more remembering how you were.

In a lifetime, you collect a lot of objects and over a lifetime, their origin slowly fades.

Someday, someone will have to attend to my collections, and decide what to do with them.

Perhaps they will even wonder why you or any of them were so important to me.

Important enough to be kept, just stones after all.

Or perhaps, you will become part of their collection

Or a pellet in a driveway

Or a stone tilled into a garden.

It is my hope that wherever you end up, someone sees you in a way that I was not able.

That you will be singularly important to them, and they tell your story repeatedly.

And when they are at the end, another will come and another after that.

Know always that when you held my attention, it was with a depth that I will never forget

Nor forgive myself for ever taking for granted.