Julie Liger-Belair, Angela Arnold, Emily Tee

AT THE ROCK FACE                                                          

Angela Arnold

You think you can escape the truth of all this

unspeaking stone? Uncontradicting

itself, unpretending

to be something more, something

with grand names to it?

Listen. Listen even to its silent

refusal to say ‘Present’ because present it isn't – not

in the present: a compression

of past and wordless admonition

is all it is. Touch it,

really, and then try

and tell me another small lie, pretend

to be truly here

when you say

set, ancient words: again, again, another layer –

disrespecting all sense

of the true core of this place.

LESSONS FROM GEOLOGY

Emily Tee

after Denise Levertov’s  “Stepping Westward”

I leave behind the clay

that sculpts the mounded hills

of my home near the Cotswolds

where the warm earth is malleable

letting me re-mould myself

shape-shifting as time requires

I travel south, east, to the Chilterns

this land is flint hearted

hidden within the chalk hillsides

these are the calcified remnants

relics of long gone sea creatures

the flint protrudes through paths

sharp as a tooth, stark as a broken bone

if I must make myself flint then let me

hard times demand hard responses

yet the lesson may not be to become stone

but find a way to use that strength

a sharp edge to strip a carcass

pare away unwanted flesh

prepare a new skin to be worn

a mantle round my shoulders

I’ll harness only what’s needed

within its own season

keep learning as I go