Click below to listen to the narration:
they were stones scattered across the country...in riverbeds...breakwaters...prairie furrows...city curbs and schoolyard fences...silent...but shaped by every footstep...every grief...every small act of courage pressed into them by passing lives...in the capital...the stones felt promises shift...budgets tightening...banners changing hands...the press lantern flickering in the wind...arguments rose and fell like weather...yet beneath them the stones sensed a stubborn will to hold together...along atlantic docks...stones braced the breakwaters where fishermen mended nets and councils debated winter’s cost...letters glowed like embers...small defiances against the cold...and the stones held that warmth...across the plains...stones lay above minerals sleeping in the dark...councils gathered with maps and hope...newcomers arrived with ready hands...and towns wrestled with welcome and worry...the stones absorbed both...in the cities...stones felt the tired steps of mothers counting coins...nurses finishing double shifts...families drifting eastward for gentler mornings...on an island shore...stones circled a fossil bed beside a dump that never should have been...a small paper raised its voice...and the stones kept the memory...there was a night...when candles lined a schoolyard fence...the stones held their warmth...absorbing a town’s sorrow...they offered no answers...only witness...patient and enduring...holding the weight of every story until someone is ready to lift it again...