Poem by Laura Dickinson
They lifted their hands together
Throwing not a mortar board
But a collection of wilting stars
Removed from orbit round their heads
And propelled towards the sky
The longest held breath
Let out into the deepest sigh
Spinning stars grew higher until
Suspended in ink black empty space they connected
Constellations
Sparks of orange, blue and red in between
Spoke of something else to understand
That of which we had not yet seen
We are responsible for each other
Forgive the world and move on
But that’s hard to say
when you’re living
In the silver lining of a storm cloud
There is no more colour in silver than in grey
I am in wonder of the stars
And their ability to exist so far apart
In search of their answers
And nowhere else to go
We each joined in mass exodus to the beaches, fields and hills
Breaking out of the cloud and settling pearlescence
In essence escaping from the disconnect
Step by heavy step lifting each boot from the ground
Mud clung to our feet
As if proud to hinder us
The weight of just being, now
When I thought back to our earlier days
We had prayed for more than this
Look up
I looked.
Nothing
It was as if the cosmos had learned from our island
And u - turned themselves back to the sky
with a smoky vengeance that covered their trails
I have never seen Saturn
But I imagine its rings orbit with such balance
Such gravity we craved
But what a sight
When you realise the energy of 1000 people
cannot be confined to these small glowing rooms
Stacked on top of each other as if to be organised
Though technology has become our only means of interaction
We will not fall into standby
What I did see on that night was a strange lunar eclipse
Government and arts converging
Moon moving through the earths penumbra
Our arts remain defunded
Shrouded in darkness by the very rooves we lay under
We once again turned away from the sky to our screens
To consume the remnants of our art scene
Nothing new to be made
We started again
Retrained
But not in cybersecurity
And as we learned these new ways
our moon appeared from the shadow of our own earth
A supermoon
We watched it bloom
And now that story is ours to teach to the world
Images by DMU current and graduate MA fashion and Textile designers













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