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Rebecca Gethin

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Wed 20th May

    I am the form and I am the hollow
        Barbara Hepworth

Her overalls hang by the door,
goggles lie on the bench,
chisels oiled and ready for use,
her last date on the dog-eared wall calendar.

Through the night she worked in her garden,
welding herself a torso of bronze,
firmed with a smear of thumb-prints,
to hold a place where she fit in the world.

Emptying the core of herself out through the holes
she skipped clear of the garden walls,
way out of town, to dance in wind
on Zennor Hill and out to Gurnard’s Head

with the ancient granite beings
she'd conjured back to life
among agave and palm, where she’d forged
each one a form to be born back into itself.

While she’s away the leaves drop,
burst again. Trees grow taller,
trunks widen. Rain is held in the cups
of her hollows where house-sparrows bathe.

I put an ear to a hole and listen to the echo
held in the lode – a thrush stretches its wing,
a slug unfolds its horns. If I put my hand through,
someone I can’t see might take hold.

 

Poems for this issue were selected by Katherine Gallagher

Page(s) 32

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