for Dilys*
No rule forbids speech but no one’s talking. Quiet
grows from dark densities between boughs,
from heart-shaped leaves covering the ground,
their tight creamwhite umbrellas, flows
from spheres, spirals, hollows, undulations.
We come upon a hooded figure, trace spaces
that so poignantly speak her body. With hands
in a scoop that’s river, wordlessly we unlace
the emerald hair of splayed weeds, silts
where fleshy roots bed, black threads
squirming from eggs. We don’t need to name
the moment when twined swirls of bronze read
as petals unfolding outwards – corollas
frail as small birds’ wings and as strong –
or the moment when a surge beneath the lid
makes the box of possibility spring
open. As if placing shoes outside a temple
we left our voices in the street by the gate,
entered another language. And now, sitting
by the untroubled waters, we dip feet.
Written after visiting Sculptor Barbara Hepworth’s garden, St. Ives
© Myra Schneider
This poem is from Circling The Core, Enitharmon 2008 and featured here with the permission of the poet and publisher.
* Dilys is Dilys Wood, an accomplished poet and anthologist. She is the founder of Second Light Network of Women Poets.
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