Jenny Lewis's poem, In the Turrill Sculpture Garden, was written for the opening, on Friday 11 July 2008, of an exhibition of text-based carving and sculpture at the Turrill Sculpture Garden, Summertown Library, Oxford. The exhibition ran until September 2008. It showed work by contemporary letter cutters with inscriptions on Welsh and Cumbrian slate, limestone, and other materials. Featured artists were Bil Brown, Pip Hall, Bernard Johnson (with Jenny in the photograph above), Giles Macdonald and John Neilson. Jenny's poem was also made into a poster and displayed in the library as part of the exhibition.
In the Turrill Sculpture Garden
'All you need is a library and a garden.’ - Cicero
before books, nature held the secrets and passed them on:
hawthorn was for cleansing and chastity
ash marked the doorway between inner and outer worlds
and in churchyards, the lone yew, standing guard over the dead
opened windows for rebirth
here in this library garden, secrets become shadows running in and out of spaces
words caught on slate from Wales and Cumbria
shade leads to dark and deeper dark -
we drift on water and see the sky through willows
rain-splashed inscriptions on stones like those etched by the first poets,
living secluded in glade and forest, as the quick fox
wove its shifting shape through voice and verb
sunlight on limestone says all shall be well
walnut, signifying change and growth
Christ's essence in a little boat of shell:
and here under the apple tree Gaia the Earth Goddess
is quietly reading her book. There's a space on the seat
beside her for you. Will you join her?
In the Turrill Sculpture Garden © Jenny Lewis 2008; used with permission.
Copyright of this poem remains with the poet: please do not download or republish without permission.