The Orkney-based poet, Lydia Harris, has recently been working on a series of poems inspired by the Grooved Ware she recently encountered at the Tracing the Lines exhibition at the Orkney Museum and at the famous Links of Noltland excavations on the island of Westray. We are delighted to be able to be able to present two of Lydia’s wonderful poems here, and will very much look forward to hearing more from her in the future.
Grooved Ware, Tankerness House Museum
cover your face against my stare,
I can’t get my fill, moon-rock’s kin,
It’s too late to return through water and flame,
you’re trapped in your frown, your eyes half formed
water pressed from between your grains
toughened with shells, muffled with hay
you stiffen in flames – little martyrs you stay,
however much you want to be unmade.
How I know you
(after Alisanka )
you shrink
disintegrate
blackened lung
ooze-clogged
with spiral stain
scored and scorched
Noah’s face
formed by the flood
dried by the sun
with no tongue
