He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.

He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practising for the future

when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.
~Norman MacCaig “Small Boy” from The Poems of Norman MacCaig

Some things we pick up
but toss aside like a game.
They hold no meaning
and we want to see how far they go
and how many skips they make.

Some things we pick up
and they are smooth and sparkly,
seeming somehow special;
throwing them back into the abyss
feels like a loss, yet we still let them go.

When there is the one appearing so ordinary,
yet feels just right in our hand,
picked up and pondered,
then placed securely in a pocket,
never to be tossed away.

And so it is,
ordinary as we are,
He never lets us go.
We fit perfectly in His Hand,
safely stowed inside His pocket.