One Life Maurice Devitt

One Life

A boy picks up a stone, throws it in a river, watches the water swirl to suck it in, pictures the unseen stone falling in slow motion to the river bed, where it will lie for years, rocked gently, but not disturbed, by the chortling current, brindled by the time lapse of seasons.

One day, the boy, now a man, diverting from the frustration of a fruitless business trip, returns to the river; standing like a heron on the tufted bank - grey against green - he stoops to pick up a pebble, but turns away, knowing he can never revive the dappled perfection of that ordinary day.

Maurice Devitt