A poem that reframes ageing as perpetual renewal, connecting the self back to nature.
renewed skin
never the same trace
gentle sketched sunflowers
weeping in the snow
grazing the walls like evening ballads
floating earth doors
your back to me
an uncovered palace wall
your back on me
an ambulance carrying life
it continues to grow
an invisible history
fringed with strangers
in the measures of a prayer
the red clay hands that hold you
the towering will of hands
the sky and all the livingness in-between
all that protects you is a body
a small wonderland
like a house mixed up in fire-certainty
time oblivious through the window
but abandoned in your limbs
The old sea pier beloved
by the seagulls who dance over it
war on a stage
a winter field in other light
your face a continual electrical trail
where love comes to retire
where love comes to suspend
a bewitched symbol
a gentle stage, undying
a boat in billowing minds
and on the walk home
the child behind you turns on all the lights
all your ruins move closer to my ruins
a whole country and we begin
you by the door
unable to understand the frantic English
the half cut wood you dream to make
a dolls house where we can live
but we can’t go backwards
you cannot step into the same river twice
like the way renewed skin
continues its mystery universe.
Text by: Greta Bellamacina
Illustrations by: Olivia Healy
Poet, actress and filmmaker Greta Bellamacina is the author of Perishing Tame (2016), a meditation on female identity, and editor of Smear (2017), an anthology of contemporary feminist poets.
