mineral

I somehow find myself again at the edge of the water and the waves break gently onto the shore. Many worlds meet – I walk along the rocks and the delicious crunch of each step vibrates up through my body. I pick some up, I ignore others.

Before long I’m lying down and the lumped uneven surface pushes into the back of my body like a steady hand holding me up. The clouds break and take and pass by glacially to the soothing song of lapping and crashing waves.

It’s colder now and when my skin meets the surface it stings a little
I let the sea swallow me whole and am complete again

I am mineral

I am molecule

calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, chloride, magnesium, iron, zinc, iodine, chromium, copper, fluoride, molybdenum, manganese, selenium

‘We are part mineral beings too — our teeth are reefs, our bones are stones — and there is a geology of the body as well as of the land. It is mineralization — the ability to convert calcium into bone — that allows us to walk upright, to be vertebrate, to fashion the skulls that shield our brains.’