Vast, by Phil Vernon

Pendour, by Barbara Hepworth (UK). 1947.

​Vast
for Barbara Hepworth
 
How did you know
before you reached inside and opened it,
the surfaces within a solid sphere would be
        so vast
that light would brush their grain like fingertips
and never die?
 
How did you know
the only place to tilt and tap the blade;
how did you dare to make
the first – the final – cut?
 
How did you know
what we did not –
and would not, still:
our fear of seeing space unfolding endlessly?

Phil Vernon

This poem first appeared in Pennine Platform.

Phil lives in Kent in the UK, where he returned in 2004 after two decades in various parts of Africa. He works as an advisor on peacebuilding and international development. He mainly writes formal poetry, finding the interaction with pre-established patterns of rhythm and rhyme can lead in surprising directions. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, journals and websites, and been shortlisted in competitions. A micro-collection, This Quieter Shore, was recently published by Hedgehog Poetry Press. Some of his published work can be found on his website www.philvernon.net/category/poetry.