The Certainty of Granite

This phrase, ‘The Certainty of Granite’ is one that I’ve had knocking around for years, and it was the working title of my book before I settled on the one I have now.

Instead, earlier this year I crafted this poem from various notes and journal entries.

The ideas here don’t resonate in the same way they once did: I no longer rely on one place for that sense of certainty. But there’s nothing like granite to evoke the everydayness of Aberdeen, Scotland’s silver city. And it was that very solidity that I felt the lack of in my surroundings when we first moved away.

The Certainty of Granite
Catriona Turner

Home is the solid place
quarried from its own ground
by those who’ve also
known my streets.

The stone scintillates,
staunch and enduring,
sentry to the places that
know me, I know.

I’ve lived away:
in concrete, on sand,
by oceans and mountains.
Those places have met me.

Where granite takes root,
though, is assured.
It stays with me.
I keep its certainty.