I skipped a stone upon a stream,
meandering through mountain glen --
it skimmed the surface like a dream,
not once, not twice, not thrice, but ten.
The sun shone bright that splendid day
I skipped a stone upon a stream.
The water caught each shining ray
and sparkled with each brilliant beam.
You can't imagine how it gleamed,
that laughing water struck by light.
I skipped a stone upon a stream
that summer day when all seemed right.
On days when life goes racing by
and I am running out of steam,
I recollect that fine July
I skipped a stone upon a stream.
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Author Notes
In the past week Judian James and Alvin Ethington have both posted beautiful quaterns, and I became enchanted by the form.
This is my first quatern, which is a poem composed of four quatrains. The first line of the first quatrain becomes the second line of the second, then the third line of the third, and finally the last line of the fourth and final quatrain. While I have used the abab rhyme scheme, that is not required.
For those who like the trivia I dig up when researching poems, I found out the world record for skipping stones, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is 51 skips, a feat accomplished by Russell Byars on July 19, 2007. This shattered the old record of 40 set in 2002. I think I've never managed more than 5 or 6 skips, but I've watched my son and his dad skip a stone over a dozen times.
When you do it right, it feels as if you've just won an Olympic medal.
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