Arc of the Sky
The angel has landed.
Our competition combining elements of Sculpture in the Valley and the recent Arc of the Sky choral performance in Blythburgh church has been won.
The invitation for artistic responses to the Voice Project’s Arc of the Sky film (still on Youtube) brought in 21 entries – poems, drawings and paintings.
The judge, a professional poet, awarded the prize to Marilda Barton, a Norwich-based member of the choir.
And the prize itself – one of Cindy Lee Wright’s peace angels – was presented this week in a simple ceremony on the city’s Fye bridge.
(Image – Brian Guthrie presenting the Peace Angel prize to competition winner Marilda Barton, pictured with her daughter, Margot. Photo by Ann Follows.)
ARC OF THE SKY COMPETITION WINNERS
Winner of the Cindy Lee Wright Peace Angel
My angel, the morning chorus always woke us up
You, curled up then stretching in your warm watery cocoon, me, having found a
comfortable way of laying on my left side with a pillow under my right knee.
Facing the window looking at and listening to the beautiful day slowly waking up.
The house is so quiet, outside, not a sound but..
The birds only the birds, they are in full voice cheering loudly at the sun and we
listen…then just by magic the volume is turned down and their song becomes soft and
far away
And we lie there you and I wondering if we are going to meet soon.
The chorus woke me this morning of the 28th of May and my mind took me immediately
to that morning 46 years ago..
My beautiful long awaited petite fille, my secret treasure. I love you
Tomorrow is your birthday.
I didn’t have to wait much longer!
Have a happy day, you have the sun in your heart.
Mum.
Marilda Barton
Runners up
Skylark Singing
Hand carved angels fill rafters
polyphonic voices reach skyward
feet wakened by shingled waters
wander Suffolk’s green lanes.
Bells billow a crown of fire
higher and higher throat singers
winds flicker reeds in the bay
and the skylark sings, sings.
Starlings upon the Path
Along the road, crisp and clear,
The rain now past, the sky is blue,
Fresh rain soaked puddles here and there do dot the cobbled path,
And upon the path and in that puddle
I spot, forty starlings,
With flashing body and rainbow spotted wing,
Bathing to their hearts content.
From each pair of wings,
Drips fly here and drips fly there, drips and drops fly everywhere,
Forty starlings, colours flashing in the sun,
No time to grab the phone and click,
Impulsively the starlings up and fly away,
Now they are gone, leaving only ripples flowing in the dinky little pond.
Just five seconds of pure joy for starlings and for me,
But here it is, a picture captured in my mind.
Jenny Knight
I liked the honest, unadorned, heartfelt quality of the first prize winner. I guess what made each of the three stand out was that they weren’t trying too hard – weren’t ‘reaching’, as we say in poetland.