By Ben Tufnell
A web of mist hangs
a surprised bulb of sun
above cliffs painted
with ochre and copper,
streaked with red wine,
and below, a pewter sea.
We wander a way
across an old map
baked brown and dry.
I make a poem,
putting one foot in front
of the other,
stirring up clouds
of dust and pollen:
constellations of remote
stars spinning
in ancient sunlight;
aeolian motes.
And then; a beach
strewn with small signifiers,
a tracery of presence,
pieces of histories:
a shoe, a feather, a bone
some writing.
The wet horizon
is as indistinct
as the thought
that streaked across
the sky; a bird
through your eyes
just as you blinked.
A passage through space:
the words on the page.
Ben Tufnell is a curator and writer based in London. Poems have been published or are forthcoming in Anthropocene, Entropy, Fire, La Picioletta Barca, Rialto, Smartish Pace and Terrible Work, amongst others. Tufnell has published widely on modern and contemporary art and his most recent book is In Land: Writings About Land Art And Its Legacies (Zero Books, 2019).
More of Ben's work can be found here.
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