Presence
(At Barbara Hepworth's Trewyn Studios and Museum, St. Ives.)
 
They should place a sign here reading
"Back in five minutes." Here as left,
Your work smocks hang behind the door,
Tools still lie where they were dropped - work
Has only briefly stopped. It may
Be luck - or artifice, perhaps -
But it's as if you've slipped away.
"Gone out for lunch" or "Popped next door"
Are messages we might expect
Left propped against your last maquette.
 

Gone thirty years is near the truth,
Yet all seems well and life means all
It ever meant. Out of sight can
Never mean you're out of mind. Your
Garden flourishes as planned, where
Mute sculptures stand as monuments
To talent and to taste. And could
It be the same for everyone -
To slip away as you have done?
To tantalise and seemingly
To wait so close : ephemeral
As scent on air; in the next room
Perhaps, somewhere about the house?