She’s lifted the lid from the sky,
swung Rousay to float
on the grain of her rag paper,
eased her blunt pastel stick
to the island’s black hump.
The clouds she conjured from dust
give weight to its flanks
as she settles its bones
on her cautious blue strokes,
leaching yellow, leaching green
and the dull white rim peers through
the blank she started from.
The black isn’t dumb.
What is cracked and raw
is a land built on crazed stone.
After ‘Clouds Clearing’ pastel on paper by Jules Bradbury
posted in: Poetry