4 December 2024

Please enjoy this poem written by the inimitable Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair on Refugee Integration through Education, Language, and Arts (RIELA).

If you would like to hear Alison's poetry read aloud, the online launch of her book co-authored with Khawla Badwan, Keep Telling of Gaza, is taking place tomorrow (5 December) from 4:00-5:00pm on Zoom - register here!

Light Catching

Let us go light catching. / There are places where / there are great / shafts of it. / and nets lie idle / waiting for the / Catchers to come. // Let us go light catching. / Let us cease our angry wrestling / with angels and demons / for a while, / and watch it / play in these places, / low and long. // Let us go light catching, / cabbage white, / meadow blue. / And let us be bright, as / the light flutters by. // For the time for / light harvest / is come and / good work needs / tortoise shell / and painted ladies.

Alison Swinfen

from 'Making Soup in a Storm', New Writing Scotland 24, 2006

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