Darren

Cuddesdon Lower Stone
(51.715270733551726, -1.1262380465933124)

First found on a cold December day in 2015,
it lay quiet by the hedgerow,
in the same wide field where once it stood proud—
a silent witness near the shadow
of a war-born decoy from darker times.
Tall as a man, slender as memory,
six feet in height, a foot in breadth,
weathered by wind and watchful time.

I returned in May, a decade on—
the nettled margins thick and high,
too wild to pass with ease.
Across the ditch, in the neighboring field
where the Upper Stone once met the sky,
I glimpsed another:
a broad slab half-buried in the bank,
mute and mossed, holding its secrets still.

I hope to walk those fields again
when autumn’s breath lays down the green,
and take a closer look—
stone to soul.