I’ll be performing this line, among other lines, this weekend for the Wigtown Book Festival, Scotland. What intrigues me is this little pebble I saw in this sculptor’s garden on route in regional Dumfries & Galloway.  This poem was written to share.

Earth Embryo

a carefully constructed planet

in slate

swelling in the garden

sheep snuggled into sinew

softening tree-root

hill-side

The signature of some bumble bee

organ-pipes highly strung

between the tips of two firs.

Bathed in birdsong

someone hammers something

somewhere, a tiny insect mows

the neighbour’s lawn

far away. At my foot, a smooth

liver-shaped pebble

has two little grooves for open eyes

blinking, I imagine, if you look down long enough

to consider your toes

Somebody told me

he is a drystane dyker by trade. By art

he is folding rock and chiseling rope,

carving loss into a heavy whole

sculpting stone to hug itself, warmly

chipping solace into soul

behind the house

http://www.spring-fling.co.uk/blog/2016/09/earth-embryo-by-skye-loneragan/

Skye Loneragan is the 2016 Writer in Residence for Spring Fling and Wigtown Book Festival.

This two part residency involves Skye visiting studios throughout SF 2016 (28-30 May 2016), sharing poetry across distances with those on the Spring Fling studio tour & performing to those on the shuttle buses. Over the next couple of weeks we will be publishing some of Skye’s poems here on the blog on the lead up to WBF 2016. Skye will be performing her poetry at Wigtown Book Festival (23 Sept – 2 Oct 2016).

A ‘she’ emerged in response to one of the Spring Fling artist’s work, Denise Zygadlo, her studio I dropped into on-route before the festival began, as well as with those taking the bus tour. At the time, she handed me a tiny folded poem in a matchbox drawer, words to walk away with. So much precision stitched into a moment, so many notions of ‘her’ woven into the work.  I’ll be performing the piece within a solo show at Wigtown Book Festival- ‘This Impossible Rim’

SHE

http://www.spring-fling.co.uk/blog/2016/08/those-shoes-that-were-slippy-on-marley-tiles-by-skye-loneragan/

Those shoes that were “slippy on Marley tiles”

In answer to D.Z

Her room is

A windmill of intention

a bone-cold calm and curved

whitewashed clay, and today

the work is woven into everything

She keeps herself threaded into constant wonder,

Falling stillness, sun bubbling beneath

The full face of it,

Her gentle eyes beaming

On parchment, a pencil thread

Stitches lace through lead

Hitching who we are to knotted cloth

Pointing to an endless seam

Her breath, crumpling like paper

creased into the drawer of her body

stays within her, is held shut

a handle comes loose

in her palm, she walks on

with the only way

to open things up again

Comity

You can’t catch

without fishing –

got to let it dangle, bait the lull

a little, wait

with a line

These lines are string

noodles of whisper-white yarn

taughtly held, intoning silence

with promised weave

like the still piano keys

beside the loom

Put the nettle on

Watch the leaves

Slowly lose themselves

Spinning in verdure

ready the wool

dip it in to a guess

drip-dry any answer

in occasional sun, walk away –

still fishing –

don’t speak to anyone

http://www.spring-fling.co.uk/blog/2016/09/comity-by-skye-loneragan/

Spring Fling- poem in response to Studio 72

72

Smell of sawdust

and smooth round rings

caught in polish, hammering

a nail into experience

sawing into time

turning it on a lathe

to give it muscle –

to give it a leg

so it can stand

still

These are some audio clips captured in-transit with those travelling on the shuttle bus service between artists studios in Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland, as part of the Wigtown Book Festival Writer-in-Residence – I installed myself on the commute, ( a kind of waiting space!) and shared poetry across distances with anyone who wanted to hear some images while staring out a window…  

Photo: Colin Hattersley, for Wigtown Book Festival – Spring Fling