LAWRENCE UPTON

FOUR SQUARE IN A GARDEN   Lawrence Upton

          for two voices      slow throughout

         

senses
	senses
scents
	senses
self
	selves
self
self
	sense of
	sense of
sense off --
	sense of
selves --
	sent off
selves
	a sense of my
self
	a section of my
selves --
	self
	standing
standing self
off the scent
	alone self
sense of
	no sense of
	no sense in
scents --
	self
	no self
sense
no sense --
	non-self
	selfishly
	non self --
standing --
	violent
inviolable
violect --
	no sense of
no sense in --
	labelled thus
unable
	and voluble
viable
voluminous
	human
self upon
self
	up on
selves upon
	standing
left out
	¿left out?
left out
	thieving its
	own space
leaving
	no doubt
no space
	blue light
whole of the --
	sky of the
sun in the --
	head over
stone
	over head
sun in the sky
	lick of blue
flash of --
	light --
green
	irregular
indentations
	cross over
regularity --
	regularity
	singularly
singularly
	open
ha!
	¿did you?
see
	see!
¿sea shells?
¿and butterflies?
delicacy
	as boulders rolling
stilly
	mountain
and crashing --
	in stillness
	thinness
fastness
	see through
	perpendicularity
	whether
clarity --
	weathering
	in
ring in the --
	time to
natural
	change
trained to
chained to --
	hands together
linked
linking
clang of --
	silence!
	silence
	green burst out
	profusion
	starred sine
sawn
	upright
against
	wind
bowed
	cello shaped
tipped up --
	into the cavity
it makes a
cavity in an
is singing --
	square and
round it
	growing
	clamour
of planted
	ideas
eye steers
	the see of green
a succoured space
	upright
a bright
	dull
stone
	upon
stone
	interlacing
	spaces
space is
	space is
upon itself
	maintaining
	eyes circle
	squared
circularity
	clear
in a queer
	perspective
perspective
	the nearer it seems
the more
	it
tilts
	away
weighing
	the question
the question
	its texture
its manner
	of moving
of eye and mind
	physically
hand
touching
	perhaps
	what one wants to say
	is
dynamic and
	dignity a gaiety of stone
cast	cast

Optional note. This poem refers to or strikes off from FOUR SQUARE (WALK THROUGH) & OTHER SCULPTURES BY BARBARA HEPWORTH IN THE BARBARA HEPWORTH MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN, ST IVES, CORNWALL. It was written in 1998, in a period when I often visited that garden and sometimes stayed there hours; it was web published at that time but that page has long since disappeared. This is a reworking, largely matching the notation developed in my performances with Tina Bass and used in my book Memory Fictions