Huge thank you to Rene Crouch for contributing a wonderful poem inspired by my painting ‘The profound inability to think in female terms’ (30 x 42cm, watercolour and ink on paper, 2021)
New writing is regularly added to my Ekphrastic writing page. Do have a look (and a read).
‘The profound inability to think in female terms’ by Rene Crouch, 2023
How many bones?
How many axes?
foregoing clothes
To make, and clothe,
Our children?
Her hand mirrors
Her story
Rich with soil-graft and
The wet-milk-toil for her young kin,
waxing lines of hardened skin,
In the rope-grip,
The intelligence of the fingers
That foresee the tumbling of a toddler
The breaking of a clay cup
The missed latching of a gate
And cattle spread up on the hill.
And the peace-keeper
Willing her sisters not to fight
But to share the scraps
If they can.
They share ant-hills, dry earth,
Bare feet they can still read
Each other
In their nakedness.
They dance,
Following a deep rhythm they don’t try to understand.