Adrienne Stevenson & Marie-Andree Auclair

Skipping Stones
 
You lie on a sandy beach: the sand is sun-warm
pricks your skin with finely ground glass specks
that the lake has not yet licked smooth
while worn-flat pebbles remember the granite mountain
that looms over your lonely shore.
 
Our smooth stones, each fitting the heart of our palms
trace low arcs above the water
touch and rebound until their energy is spent.
Then one of us sacrifices the next stone
to the god of placid waters.
 
You sit, arms akimbo, fingers idle, attentive
to clouds and birds, the patterns of flight
and wind, the peaceful motion of branches and leaves
that draws you to its breath, to yours
and you feel yourself taking root like grass and trees.
 
That is what we do, throw our poems on the page
of a common lake, what sinks quickly is culled
what uncoils its energy in many rebounds stays,
a blended poem for our venture, another bird in the sky.
 


Marie-Andree Auclair and Adrienne Stevenson are Ottawa, Canada poets/writers who met ten years ago at workshops run by the Ottawa Public Library. Since then, they are been supporting each other’s writing and meeting regularly other poets. Both are extensively published, in Canada, the USA, UK, Europe and Australia. Adrienne won first and third place in the Poets' Pathway: Lampman Challenge in 2018. In/Words published Marie-Andree’s first chapbook “Contrails.”  Besides their active interest in gardening (Adrienne) and traveling (Marie-Andree), they have been procrastinating playing the flute and the piano. Writing collaboratively was a great experience.