Living Lines
Plate 33: Carved stone head recovered from demolition material; ‘The carving lacks any symbolic element […] it might be suggested that it in fact depicts the church’s benefactress, Eleanor Atherton.’
Birley Fields, Hulme Manchester: Community Excavation, Oxford Archaeology North (2013)
Living Lines
The cockroaches have read the signs:
from shovels and picks, diggers and dogs; I am one eye up -
of art and time and living lines -
a bomb shock bust pulled down to make way,
with a noose worn gently around my neck;
the cockroaches have read the signs -
years silenced by soil, brick and stone;
where memories are held, lest voices are heard
of art and life and wishful times:
ropes pulled tight for washing lines
or ragged walkways in the sky;
the cockroaches have read the signs
with jokes and laughter, music and song,
threats of violence, danger and wrong,
of art and wine and living times
in pricks of needles, bracken and lime -
one more chiselled eye for detail:
the cockroaches have read the signs
of art and time and living lines.
Eleanor Donaldson (2017)