NEW POEM - Samuel Cartwright's Stones

S P Clark shares Samuel Cartwright's Stones, a new narrative poem about grief, forgiveness and the burdens we choose to carry. Set in the peaceful English countryside, it follows one man's quiet ritual as he discovers that the greatest journey is not the one we walk each day, but the one that leads us towards peace.

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Samuel Cartwright’s Stones

S P Clark

Dawn starts to break in the village quaint,

and the chorus of birds can be heard on the morning breeze;

sunlight dapples the ground in hues of heavenly paint.

Samuel Cartwright takes his old body on a walk through woodland trees,

down the narrow path, on his daily pilgrimage in the vein of a saint.

He carries his worn-out canvas satchel and hears the creaking of his knees;

his weathered face deeply lined in ridges prominent not faint.

From his satchel he takes a small white pebble and places it with dis-ease

upon the cairn he has built for years that no one near dares taint. 

The stones he’s placed for four decades have built a giant pile

Underneath an ancient oak that’s proudly stood for many years.

Each pebble seems filled with a pain from his memory file;

some with regret and some with anger formed through many tears.

His battered face carries an expression that the villagers revile;

some scorn, some mock, and some without reason are full of fears

for they had seen nought but misery with no hint of a smile.

He’s walked this winding woodland path for so long but he never hears

anyone ask why he stacks these stones in this anguished style.

With each day that passes, Samuel Cartwright’s pile grows,

and the passing dog walker sees his mission and gingerly nods,

wondering if this is a superstition but never asks, so never knows;

others stare and contemplate if this is a ritual for the Gods.

But Samuel just places his pebble of brightest white…then turns and goes.

Some think it’s a memorial for a loved one; he places then turns then plods;

leaving behind this mountain that in the dawn shimmers and brightly glows.

He never offers explanations, but the villagers sense something is at odds;

it’s like he’s trapped in a time, as if time itself he did oppose.

For Samuel Cartwright these weren’t memorials yet each for a different soul,

each for a different person he had not forgiven yet.

No individual wound he felt was enormous pain, but each had taken its toll.

Some were for careless words that in his heart had set,

some for painful betrayals that bore the deepest hole,

some for broken promises and some for forgotten debt,

some for little lies that left his mind black as coal,

some were for the loss of loved ones and the pain their deaths had met.

All these created buried fissures and left him less than whole.

Some stones were for his wife, Grace, whose grave he cannot tend;

it’s been forty years since her flame was suddenly, cruelly snubbed out.

He blamed her boss for inflicting stress, anxiety he couldn’t mend,

he blamed the driver whose car stalled out of the blue on the roundabout,

he blamed her best friend for the messages she didn’t send,

he blamed the ambulance driver for traffic rules that he wouldn't flout,

but most of all he blames himself as down the woodland path he wends.

He is furious with himself, so angry that he wants to scream and shout,

each grievance is a stone, a construction with no end.

For forty years he’s seen the seasons change, watched them come and go

as he placed stones in winter frost and placed them in summer sun.

He’s seen children come into this world and then he’s watched them grow,

aware that they’ll move on one day for their lives had just begun.

Some he used to blame have now died, and he’s convinced they didn’t know

the damage they inflicted and how they sapped his world of fun.

Neighbours have disappeared and vanished, they were unaware of the blows

that locked him up inside himself, made him want to hide, set him on the run.

The taller and taller his pebbles stack, the smaller his world grows.

A young girl named Sophie, in a white dress trimmed with a lace hem,

watched Samuel remove a stone from his satchel as she had watched before,

he placed the rock against the oak beneath a petal, nestled against its stem.

She bounded over, almost strident – confident and sure -

looked up into his eyes; at the age of seven she saw the weight and mayhem,

she peered into the sorrow, the anger; peeked deep into his core,

she saw this ramble down the path as though he were a man condemned,

saw the burdens that he grappled with dragging him to the floor.

She asked him a question, as only children can: when do you stop carrying them? 

That evening in his cottage, Samuel Cartwright sat all alone,

staring into the fire with only the echo of his mind;

no friends to listen or to share with, no one called him on the phone;

ensnared in a pit of isolation, a loneliness that he designed.

Outside the world was still spinning, he could hear its anguished moan.

He looked inside himself with some fear of what he might reveal or find;

he realised that some hurts mattered, and beyond the rest he’d grown 

How much do these slights still matter?  Should he still feel maligned?

It’s like Sophie brought him some light to carry, a future he’s been shown.

Dawn breaks once more in the village just like yesterday,

and Samuel Cartwright walks his path but he doesn’t walk the same.

He reaches the mound of stones but looks on them in a different way;

something is hidden in his eyes – a light?  Some hope?  A flame?

His worn-out satchel was empty, this day he had no pebble to lay;

a boulder was lifted from his shoulder, a boulder of hurt and shame.

Samuel kneels, chooses the oldest stone, the stone had now turned grey;

forgiveness created no fireworks, but lightened the load of blame.

He placed the pebble in the trickling stream and it slowly washed away.

Samuel Cartwright starts his walk as the village wakes at dawn,

one foot before the other on the woodland path he’s so many times.

Today he felt somehow different, ease guided him, he was drawn

to the cairn, and on the way he heard the church bells chime,

he heard the morning chorus as in their bed the chicks did yawn.

In the dappled sunlight he knelt before the stones that shine,

and one-by-one he released the stones to the stream, feeling less forlorn.

Some were easy to set free, some still stuck to him like grime,

some took tears, some took weeks; his new routine had been born.

Day-by-day on his new pilgrimage of forgiveness to be free,

he noticed the neighbours he had missed when walking on the track,

he recognised a smile; each eye that gleamed he could see,

moving forward, easing the strain and never looking back.

As the pile reduced in size at the base of the old oak tree,

Samuel Cartwright noticed healing where one there had been cracks.

The white pebble mountain shifted fast, and now so much could he see;

his weathered face now began to glow as he cast away the stack   .

The pile dwindled but the world didn’t change – he just saw what he could be.

Samuel Cartwright walked the path to his woodland place;

the ground beneath seemed softer, the air so clean and calm.

He knelt down to grasp the final stone that was blindly staring him in the face,

Samuel, I’ve blamed you long enough, he said, holding it in his arms;

it was time to let go of his bitterness and to fondly remember Grace.

Anger was the self-inflicted punishment, but forgiveness was his balm.

In the dawn he’d cleared the ground of stones and in himself created space,

and Samuel’s stone floated lightly down the stream, sparkling like a charm;

with an empty satchel, love’s memories Samuel Cartwright starts to embrace.

© S P Clark