My friend Bella and I wrote this poem together whilst lying on the grass in a park in Leamington on a gorgeous sunny day.
Bella came to visit me in university for a week, and we had been desperately wanting to write and draw together for a very long time. Finally it happened!!
This poem was inspired by the stunning water that we saw flowing through Jephson gardens (the first image below). We both love water. Everything about it. The way it moves, the way it can be glassy still and reflective, then rippling with the slightest wind, and so powerful that it can destory whole villages and kill people with a tsunami wave.
The way the sun shines on the water, making it look as though there are a million diamonds on the surface. And the feeling of being in the water; and how that's different be it swimming pool, lake or sea. I could go on.. but I won't :)
I love the tension between the idea of being cushioned by the emeralds (like grass), yet they cut the narrator. It is a beautiful pain.
The poem then moves on to the idea of being formed by nature. We had great fun with that part ...carving, etching, eroding :) It follows the creation of an individual to their death, with their ashes being scattered in a stream. The first and last stanza are linked in this sense, as the diamonds on the water finally meet the stars in the ocean sky, resembling the circle of life.
It was so much fun to write, we'd never done this before, and I look forward to writing many more together :))
Diamonds shimmering on the walk of life
Drifting onwards, sparkling like stars
Maybe they’ll join them
Up in the sky
And when I look heavenwards
I’ll see them fly
My head is cushioned in a field of emeralds
They prickle and pierce my silky skin
It hurts
But I find comfort in these shining stones
The scars they create
Turn my body into artwork
I am nature’s sculpture
Moulded by its green hands
The wind carves my curves
The artist’s hand etches away at my being
The sun’s rays flood this canvas with colour
At last I rise; a fully formed being
One day, waves will erode my shapely form
Crawl into the caves that inhabit me
I’ll lie like a statue, my veins cracking the marble
Later, my ashes will form sapphires that float on flowing waters
They’ll seal their fate with the diamonds
And both will rejoice in the ocean sky
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