Collage by Garrie Stewart at Empty Is The Morning
There's trouble in the classroom
for two words have escaped
and cannot be found.
Are they over there
under the singing desk? No.
Do they lurk, perhaps, inside
the snowing cupboard? No.
All day we search:
on top of, under, inside.
We've given up and are leaving
when someone notices a movement
behind the heater in the corner.
Going over
we peer into the dusty space
and there, huddled like little-people,
holding each other in a desperate clutch
we find them -
two tender, lilting words: fur bravery.
Ltd Edn Lion Print from Jacqui Oakley
What could they mean lying there?
How did they ever find themselves together?
We shift uneasily,
not sure how to respond to this transgression,
knowing only that the sensual shape of them is real -
They are like children who have crossed the borders into physical love
and we do not know whether to disturb them.
But of course we do.
Lionheart linocut on papercut proof by Sonia Romero via She Rides the Lion
When at last we turn out the light -
the words returned safely to the dictionary -
we hear the rustling sound of language on the move
and know that no mere rule of syntax
will ever hold these words in thrall again.
The whole soaring lifting life of them jumps.
['Fur Bravery' in Thicknesses of the Heart: poems by Peter Hall]
Bronze by Art By Fabrice
