John Henry Waddell 1921 – 2019
Ruth Waddell 1925 – 2023
A short way downhill from the house
a stream runs through the marriage
of foliage to light. Where a visiting car turns
to park red earth provides
a circle for the naked
forms exposed to every shade of weather:
relaxed, exultant, cast
so deep in thought the local storms
can never interrupt. One so close
to tipping over, she
is set against the sky and balanced
on a caution as though
bronze could breathe.
Salad and drawings
for lunch; never waste
a model’s time. Backbone, trees, the current’s
easy pace are all
creation’s lines for charcoal
to retrace. And when a body has to pause
the new growth around it
greens and glows
a little brighter for the cardinal
now there now gone in a moment too quick
to be reclaimed. From the studio’s
high ceiling
innocents float between rising
and a fall. At the darkest hour
of night the sculptor shakes the dreams out from
his mind and goes to pick up
where he left off reaching, catching,
flying the bodies’ weight
away. It’s time to give spirit form
and spirits when they fly
fly high. The work
endures. The afternoon drifts
back down from clay and bronze
to pastel, water, trees that bend and a dog
so old he’s happy
that the grass remembers him.
David Chorlton
.