Between his thumb and finger he
held up the stone and watched
the sunlight drift along the
smooth surface and then drop
towards the ground.

He eased his squeeze and watched
as his stone fell from his hand
and bounced from his steel toe
into the cold streaming water
surrounding him.

Then he bent over looking for
some place to wash the dirt
from between his fingers and
to wash the blood from under
his eyes.

Then there was no water,
and there was no dirt,
and there was no blood.

He drifted back towards the path
and made his way along the path
and he tried to make his boots
push deep into the ground with
each step.

There were some rocks at the
sides of the path which lay beside
each other and laid on top of
each other between the grass and
the dirt.

He tried to avoid walking on the
rocks at the same time as making
sure he looked at every last one:
the size, the shades, the colour,
the lines.

Then he looked at the sky,
the rain fell on his face,
and he missed him.

Blind he threw himself to the ground
and threw his face in to the ground
and tried to scrape his fingers
through the dirt so that some
dirt might stick.

There he laid turning his body
in the dirt sifting through it
with his hand holding some up to
the light looking for some
trace of something.

But there was nothing amongst this,
none of it stuck between his fingers,
none of it sat thick upon his lungs,
none of it was big enough to hold up
to the sky.

So he squeezed his eyes shut,
blood ran down his cheeks,
and he missed him.