Conversations with stone

(Nimue)
Outside the window I heard the weird whispering
Of gravel gathered, bathed in blue white house light.
We were river rocks, they murmured, stream sonorous
Offering stories as I lay wakeful and waiting for sleep.
We were submerged stones, our wild water knew the tread
Of mammoths, of massive creatures lost to this landscape.
We were Doggerland, but did not define ourselves, did not call
Anything very much, we were stone in stream, sifted and scoured.
Their memories moved me, the wash of waterways unnamed
A lingering of land long shifted beyond all recounting, remembered
In smooth stories of pebbles, washed up in this pale place
Non-beach of modern making, displaced but unperturbed.
Your mud was a mammoth-trod riverbed, no recourse if
You are scraped, shipped, spread in someone’s driveway.
Ancient rivers still move in the memory of stones they shaped.
Crunch beneath my boots, slip slightly, remain unchanged.