Words fall away by Gareth Jenkins

Lead Past/Present Pets poet Gareth Jenkins offers a poetic reflection of his experience creating poetry with Studio A artists. 

Can we talk more about the bravest little bunny running through time
as it slowed down around us? How it started in pieces but reassembled itself
in the green of paradise, under the weeping willows, beneath the snow-capped mountains
beside the river flowing all kindness into a basin within the earth’s heart. O and that Ibis
appearing like a revelation - its apology drifting slowly towards us from the far edge of cognition
arriving with the crisp certainly of an already made decision.
 
Can we talk more about love? How the always touching owls are brightly lit
with the pleasure of being together. How all the other words are merely stand-ins
as all words are merely standing in, signalling towards feeling
so deeply felt as to never be exhausted by the saying. The hand that draws,
draws love from the depths - see all that beautiful plumage nuzzling softly at the neck?
Words fall away and colour graces the just-touching warm bodies, whistling.
 
Can we talk more about the whale? Not the whale itself,
but the riverbed you were walking, far from me
in a distant rendition you inhabited whole
but remotely, a totality of being within yourself
your hand lifting the already drawing of the whale into your arms, onto the page.
Poetry is not pottery, to be sure. Your fingers make vessels to fill the silence
to fill with silence, your mind away at the riverbed
scouring the sand for the next line.