THE SPACE BETWEEN US: Towards the abstract

Andrew Marstrand:  Unseparate*

Words between us
are light, snow
held crystal-crisp
in winter air. Space
between us is light,
sky between curtains
at dawn. Thoughts
between us are light,
a dream-dance that
wants only touch. Love
between us is light,
a seed blown as far
as it takes to find
the perfect ground.

Fragile like the ‘snow held crystal-crisp in winter air’, unstable, forever changing, a ‘dream-dance’? Andrew Marstrand seems to me to weave words around that elusive space called ‘abstract’. The term has been used in a variety of ways by now. My own preference is not so much for the ‘essence’ of a piece. More often I go mainly for the invisible, precarious, constantly shifting – ‘light’. Is it lit? Is it weightless? Perhaps both? Whatever it is, no pure stance is taken. I do involve recognisable figures quite often. As long as that space ‘in-between’ remains actively alive.

*Published in the poetry magazine: 14 (2011) No. 11, p. 12
Reproduced by Poetry Magazines, Southbank Centre, London