Beginning at a Loss

So bereft, he cannot name it or find
an image for what on earth it had been –
woman or waymark, hearth or hiding-place
once familiar as the tongue to the mouth.
 
So close to his being, he had not – ever ̵
thought it separate: it was unthought
knowledge, realised only in loss, this
forgetfulness words cannot begin
 
to sound, or hands carve out of air alone.
(Give him stone!) It was lair, home, an idea
of refuge exact as his own body,
as its form to the hare. Now he’s bewildered,
 
both hunter and hunted. Only a block
of raw stone, cold under his hands
searching rough-hewn edges, planes.
He takes mallet and chisel. Starts knocking.
 

Linda Saunders

from a sequence, The Sculptor’s House,
in collection A Touch on the Remote, 2016, Worple Press,
ISBN 978-1-9052083-4-0