My face won’t be found in folk still to come
my shape’s not sculpted in skin and bone.
You’ll maybe imagine it’s me you see
at winter twilight in wind-skirled beech leaves
or sketched in a swirl of sticks, floating
on the edge of an eddy in an elbow of the Tay;
a cloud might catch my curves one day
as fishtail transforms into feather boa.
And if heartsore arms hold the heft of me
in muscle memory, mind that’ll not last either.
Once I’m away, it’s away for good,
all called back home to the couthie earth.
First published in ‘All About the Surface’ (Seahorse Publications, 2024)
“I was intrigued by an artwork in the Burrell Collection (Glasgow) – a carved plaque from the wall of a palace in Assyria, dating from 883-859 BCE. It’s a portrait of a palace servant, many of whom were eunuchs who could not have children. Images of these men would be placed on the palace walls to give them a permanent memorial because they would not leave any descendants. This made me think from a new angle about how I feel about not having children. Do I mind that my genes will not be carried on, that nobody in future generations will carry my image (or anything else of me)? I find that I don’t mind. Children would have given me a very different life, in ways I will never be able to know; but after my death, it doesn’t matter that nothing physical of me will remain in the world.”
Karen Macfarlane grew up in Dundee and wandered a bit before settling (for now) in Perthshire. Her pamphlet, All About the Surface, was published in 2024 by Seahorse Publications. Karen combines her interests in visual art and poetry at Poems On Public Art.