from BARDO

The stars are in our belly; the Milky Way our umbilicus.

Is it a consolation that the stuff of which we’re made

is star-stuff too?


– That wherever you go you can never fully disappear –

dispersal only: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen.


Tree, rain, coal, glow-worm, horse, gnat, rock.


Roselle Angwin

Wednesday, 16 March 2011

dashes of sunlight that slip through the trees

Mary Gillett is this week's poet from the Confluence anthology. Mary's well-known as a printmaker and painter; her work is enigmatic and strongly atmospheric, often focusing on Dartmoor and the Westcountry seacoast. I'd say that 'enigmatic and atmospheric' was true too of her poetry. As you'll see below, the visual sense is paramount for her.


In Malta with Dad

I step back into oval shades
into the dashes of sunlight
that slip through the trees.

Half hidden fruits glimmer
between waxy leaves
like gold and white gold.

And now the answer
to all our questions
is in the citrus offering

that casts and re-casts its shadow
across the life lines
on the old man’s palm.


Mary Gillett

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