The Fray...

On Thursdays I allow myself to listen to the voice of the blog. Not that I have much choice. Thursdays are his day, so he can pretty much say what he wants and I have to listen. It’s like the films that run in my head, I have to watch them as they flicker away even when I don’t want to. And of course Thursday is my experimental day – Thursday is about the sound and feel of the words not the tale, a day for a little creative self-indulgence. But then you already know that don’t you? Here goes…
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You should by now know that I have an affinity with stones.

I love the ‘pick them up and slip them in your pocket’ feel of them, their smoothness, their contained self-life, not self-contained life that means so much less.

They speak to me.

Some stones more than others though. Some stones say very little, it is something to do with their colour, shape, pattern, or form. Others shout at me… ‘You there, look here, I am me, a stone to be reckoned with, revered, contained, picked up and pocketed and kept secret from the fray’.

The fray, the fray, the fray. Shhhhhh. Secret from the fray.

This is not to say that all stones that speak loudly, with authority and knowledge, are interesting in their appearance, but they all have an internal message that makes me notice them and keeps them secret from the fray…

The fray, the fray, the fray. Shhhhhh, kept secret from the fray.

My most special of stones I keep close. My MOST, most, special of stones I keep and group together (away from the fray, away from the fray, the fray)… and then there are the others, my MOST, most special of stones who call to me with such emotion that they lift my spirit and call ‘MAKE - US - MORE’!

These ones have no need to fear the fray… they are the few the fray is a-feared of.

A- feared by the fray, the fray, the fray.

I have a few of these; some in Wales, one in my pocket always (to keep me safe from the fray, safe from the fray, the fray), and nine others who wait on the shelf of my office window arranged and made more. ‘MAKE - US - MORE’!

My window stones are balanced; so carefully, impossibly, balanced that the slightest movement can send them separating into the empty space that waits to envelope them and out into the fray, (out into the fray, the fray)… they are polished and smooth. So polished and smooth that I, with my shaking, old man coming, soon paper-thin-skin hands, should not be able to balance and stop the slide of the shimmering polish…

But I do.

It is about both concentration and need.

My need, their concentration - our need to hold back the fray.

OUR need to hold back the fray (the fray, the fray, the fray).

My need to hold back the fray.