From time to time, usually prompted by vague feelings of guilt, I do a trawl through my notebook and see if any of the scribblings that I have written and ignored might be worth working up into a poem.  Sometimes it is some of the seemingly most unpromising of my thoughts that I take further.

Many years ago I had an argument with my parents which ended with my stamping off to my bedroom and my telling myself that this time, this time I would never forgive them for what they had done.  I can remember my fury and my sense of injustice.  I can remember details of my room in 25, Dogfield Street, Cathays in Cardiff and, even now I can sort of re-texture my childish anger.  What I can't do is remember what the argument was about!  I can feel the pain, but I can't remember the point!

Although I am argumentative, I do not like arguments.  I feel them too keenly.  Passionate debate is fine: high words and bluster - but real cross words, felt personal disagreement I find hard to take.

Given that, it was probably not surprising that I was deeply moved by part of the Holocaust gallery in the Imperial War Museum.  I mean I was moved by it all, but it was the filmed 'testimony' in the final section where a screen played a film loop of survivors of the camps speaking directly to camera and articulating their feelings that moved me most.

I remember one survivor responding to the questions of memory and forgiveness.  To explain the feelings involved the survivor described the experience via a metaphor of a rock thrown into a pool: at first there is the splash and the ripples spread out, then the ripples subside and the surface of the pool is still - but the rock is still there under the water.  A version of this explanation informs the short poem that I wrote.

Like my childish self, I can't remember the 'real' inspiration for the sketchy notes that I jotted down, and I have to say that the poem itself was recollection written in sun bathing tranquillity!  But though I was, you might say, content when I wrote it, there is an appreciation of unease that informs the lines!

Although the poem is very short, I have tried to compress thought into a wider ambiguity that the chosen words offer.

I think this is the first time that I have used a title as a line in the poem.

I didn't enjoy writing this poem, but I do enjoy reading it.  Which I find interesting.

As always, any and all comments will be welcome.

An argument is

liquid: mirroring.

Ripples from a carelessly thrown stone

gift surface substance.

Reflection momentarily obscures

transparency.

Water smooths.

And there, beneath the glass,

and in plain sight,

the lithos, like a monument,

remains for future

use.