St. Ives is the bleached white Tate, the
hazy, colliding seasky blues and,
peeking through
gaps in grey monoliths,
the soft green of Hepworth’s garden.
This is stone
in conversation, composed
so the towers may whisper over the heads of their bulbous cousins
who are cut along the natural grain
so voices may slip across the ancient lines in their skin –
life is not kept in
our faces when she reduces us to pure movement;
the swelling outline of a mother’s belly,
a dancer’s pulsing form.
We are far from the flat-faced Madonna and Child –
clinging
holy –
we never realised we were
infant
detached, matching each other’s contours,
distant and close as art behind glass.
~Ruby Kelman, 2016