Questions

Questions is a collaboration by Lucy Kempton and Joe Hyam. Poems are based on questions drawn from an agreed starting question and formed by answers, which contain and inspire the next questions. In response to Lucy's first question, Joe kicks off. This follows our earlier work in Compasses, archived here, where Lucy's photographs illustrate Joe's series of 50 sonnets under the title Handbook for Explorers.

Thursday 20 March 2014

Swallow, where does your thread lead?


Threads.  They swung like prayer flags, rippled
in the breeze, tickled like a ribald anecdote, hung
like webs spun on grass on that bright March evening.

We’ll lose them, I said.
No matter, you replied.

I wait for the swallows to return now,
hoping for a blue wingtip
drawn across my cheek in the dark.

10 comments:

Lucy said...

Written, de profundis, last week. The first swallow appeared yesterday.

Rouchswalwe said...

The first swallow. The first Crocus. I grieve with you, sweet Lucy. And yet, Joe's words echo in our hearts and lead us into spring ...

Lucy said...

Thanks Natascha. I wasn't inclined to shout that this was here, but thought perhaps some of you might stop by. Yes, spring's at the door, and I'm thankful.

The Crow said...

Glad I dropped by here today, Lucy. This is lovely, soul-stirring, heart-mending.

Lucy said...

Cheers, Martha.

marja-leena said...

Back again to reread this and some of your earlier collaborations while thinking of Joe....

This is a precious site. (o)

Lucy said...

Thanks ML, and for letting me know you've read. I think I might get around to putting this Questions series into a simple book form, for myself and anyone who's interested, mostly because it's difficult to read back over them in the 'back to front' blog format.

Rouchswalwe said...

Oh yes! That's a splendid idea, Lucy. I would love to read it again in book form.

Roderick Robinson said...

Amazing - being able to envisage such an unforeseen poetic structure and then, courageously, to execute it. All long ago (yes, two years can seem a long time) and we're concerned with other muttons. But this here's a huge expanse of wet sand, and wet sand carries an imperative. I won't be offended if it's not noticed; in fact it's the sea's job to ensure this doesn't happen.

Lucy said...

Hello Robbie, that was a nice surprise. In fact I'm still notified by e-mail if anything pops up here, of course. You'll find this is in the little Blurb book I made of the whole series, at the end, but before the last couple of Joe's that I put in as an appendix, and a bit of context in the foreword.

Writ in wet sand, somewhere between writ in water and writ in wet cement, I guess!