It's been a long time since I wrote a poem – a good couple of years by my calculations. However, after attending my first ever watercolour workshop yesterday as part of Holy Week, I was inspired to write one today. It's interesting how one form of art can inspire another. Hidden within the poem are references to poems by Phillip Larkin and Rainer Maria Rilke. See if you can find them.
Water / Colour
For the group of artistic dabblers who gathered in the basement of a church during Holy Week.
A cloud
pregnant with rain
has released
a shower of souls
and here
we have
landed
surrounded by the elements of
water
colour
brushes
paper
light.
We work quietly
at our stations
daubing
dabbling
dreaming
as this room
becomes
a body of water
each soul
a fall
ing
rain
drop
seeding
a new mandala.
Held
in this
shimmering meniscus
something sacred
is happening;
ever-widening circles
touch
overlap
carrying the spirit
of the Sower.
And when our time
draws
to
a
close
(this class, this day, this life)
we are different
from when we arrived,
each person altered
by the numinous pigment
of the other.
–– Marianne Musgrove
17 April 2019