and still the light comes: poet Jo Bellchambers

Each Tuesday I'm posting a poem by one of the contributors to our Confluence anthology (see earlier post).

Jo Bellchambers is a red-haired elfin spellmaker. She's also a musician, and all her work has an otherworldly quality to it. Her degree piece, a text installation carved in slate, was hosted for a while in the Zen garden on the Dartington estate.



Shadow

And still the light comes here. Silent tenant of empty rooms –
it pays no heed to time.

Through a window light comes. I mean, as a cry leaves
by this route so in comes the light.

‘Sweetheart’ – words in a stairwell

and in the darkness, what of the texture of birds’ wings,
flicker of air on your skin? Will you

even remember the rain?


Be a child’s mirth up and down stairs. You know
of a freedom to ride across plains, salt off the sea

to your west, handful of stones to your name.
You can spell out your god, but in this church

let the silence fumble in prayer.

– Jo Bellchambers