Walking Madonna
Elisabeth Frink, bronze, 1981, Salisbury Cathedral
The mother of God walks
away from the cathedral
away from the closed shadows
of its interior
into the open green
of the world outside
Despite the drag of the long skirts
she strides
Her thin arms swing
empty now
these arms that held
the tender flesh of her child
measured his growing
helped to carry him
from his place of execution
prepared his body for the afterlife
She is slight small
as she makes her way
into the light
of a cold blue morning sky
ready to face the hard business
of resurrection
Beth Brooke is a retired teacher who lives in Dorset. She has three published pamphlets and one of those, Transformations, has been nominated for the PEN Heaney Prize. She has been published in a number of print anthologies and journals and several online journals including Amethyst. The most exciting thing about her is her beautiful grandson.
Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=138966572
Amethyst Review 