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Mary MacRae’s second collection
published Aug 10 by Second Light Publications. See order form (pdf file) for discount offers
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Within its very substance dwells the memory of bronze.
Smiths at Giza treadling giant bellows forging bronze
Two small pyramids back to back, the size of a cricket ball.
Hold it like a seashell, you’ll hear craftsmen beating bronze.
Eight sides, eight faces: each displays a different attitude,
But every face and attitude tells the ancient tale of bronze.
It waits upon my windowsill, imbibes the heat of the sun,
Within its core remembering well the alchemy of bronze.
Take copper with a hint of tin or arsenic or zinc:
You have the stuff of resonance, church bells cast in bronze.
Before men thought to write things down, they extracted, analysed
And fired up fearsome forges, smelted ores, created bronze.
She weighs Gill’s sculpture in her hand, senses gravity.
Anne has travelled to that Age when Man discovered Bronze.
* This poem was written during a collaboration with Mosaic Stanza in Colchester; eighteen visual artists were paired up with eighteen poets. Anne’s partner was a sculptor called Gill Southern and the response was to her bronze sculpture titled ‘From Fire’
poem published in Stone’s Throw – art from poetry poetry from art, ed. Karen Dennison,
2016, Mosaic Stanza, mosaicpoetry.wordpress.com
