‘in the ground of my beseeching’ - Kate Kennington Steer
‘in the ground of my beseeching’
Kate Kennington Steer
I could not predict the next
wind-blown blossom fall,
that spiralling apple-tree confetti
with no bride to garland;
could not track the flight of wing
either soaring above
or flitting past.
I could only grasp at
the aftershock of disturbed air
and come up empty;
could only sit gawking
at the petal in my lap,
at the seedhead by my shoe.
how might I parse the riddle of the letting-
go momentum that compelled release,
which made the blossom drop? how to dissect
the intricacies of feeding, and the knowledge
of when more space is necessary, a loss
which is a requirement of growth?
as sun dives beneath the fence line,
my attention snags on a filigree of web,
being untethered from a rusting iron hook,
transform into mountains, shift
Into curtains of Nothern Lights,
become a single entangled flag
whispering ‘here’;
it furls into waves
as I watch the action of the spring breeze
work across a sixteenth century roof;
watch as the fabric ripples past in lazy arcs
but its shadow beckons:
a potential signifier of where
air is at play,
or where air has been, entangling merrily
with cloth, with brick, with glass.
in the ground of my beseeching
I stitch a quilt of indigo,
bind tight the found-made rags,
those torn shreds of holiness
fluttering surrender at the scelra.
it quivers a praying connection
into being,
weaves shredded nerves
into synapsed patterns,
expels my body’s breath
into miasma.
it blinds
and flits
and settles again:
the ancient rhythm,
that rising, that falling,
it directs the contrapunctuated
marks of my needle
and slowly, gathers each corner
of my vestigial attention
into folds.
it restores the spaces between,
patches anew beyond the shadows,
beneath the tucks of bone-deep knowing,
and finally, reinforces my quotidian function
as mere receptor of the one great
gift.
Kate Kennington Steer is a disabled writer, contemplative photographer, and visual artist. Following a residency at the New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, in 2023 and a bursary from DAiSY (Disability Arts In Surrey), Kate is working on the bright-+/well project: a large series of works, combining photography, printing, painting and poetry examining wellbeing and the built environment. Progress can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/katekenningtonsteer/. Kate’s first solo exhibition, ‘episodes’, at Farnham Pottery (July-August 2022) featured digital paintings made whilst experiencing FND seizures. Most recently, her work was exhibited at ’Guildford House Open’, Guildford House Gallery; ‘Daisy-Chain’, The Lightbox, Woking; ‘Glimmers’, New House Art Space, Guildford; at ‘Kintsugi’, Vernon House, Farnham. She irregularly blogs at imageintoikon and publishes poetry at epiphanyoftheordinary. Her Facebook iPhone photography project ‘acts of daily seeing’ has been running since 2015. Short films combining her writing, photography, and digital paintings can be found @katekenningtonsteer on YouTube.
