Pockets Full

I collect stones.
Mostly flat and smoothed
on the beaches where they've
been tumbled from
who knows where.

I like to imagine them
drifting from a distant shore
where someone else
stood in a salty breeze
with a pocketful like me,
compelled to pick them up
to study the messages of
time and long-suffering
they carry

and that only we who reach for them
can read.