Anna Taylor

1.

The contours of the hill, rising. Inexhaustible points of contact
around its edges, like the circle, like the sphere. The hill and its inverse, the one within. Where contained water falls in the spaces, flowing out towards a greater course.

2.

A man stands in contemplation of the thing he has seen.
He drinks from a spring, welling up from the ground.

3.

The hill is the remains of a vast plateau,
The delta of an ancient river of sedimentary rocks
Which lie over an ancient limestone bed.
Its name, from ‘Penhul’, is a tautology, hill hill.

4.

Ascend with expectant senses
Wanderer in solitude, a story told before
Hunger and thirst lay him open to receiving.

Awaiting the drop. Ear resonates with the pull to outside,
The distance within,
A thread running through a man and passed on like the cup.

Crouching to a spring from within the hill,
Traveller pauses, to hear, to dwell,
To reside undivided in the inward state.

5.

The well is the secret room.
In its dark interior space, the inner light.

6.

We were searching for the well. Seen in words accrued, known
ahead and sought. We stray from the path to find it. Part way between, a transitional place on a line towards the sea.

We come to it, the cover lifted.
Sky seen within it, and ripples as the hand moves over.
Reaching for the chain to draw in the cup.

7.

Projecting spill on the side of the mount,
The well above and beneath.
A passage through it to train a weight down,
Measure the depth of the hill. The water within.

To see the unseen, and unseen seeing.
To pause and hear and know inside.

And know experimentally.

8.

A meeting on the gradient, the wanderer connects.
A vision revealed, projected onto the land
As reverse sight.

Listening there. Move further towards its shape, its form.
To dwell with it, bring everything to it, later to record and locate it in time.

9.

The prophet to gather. A people to a body and this into a shape. A square, a circle, for silent worship, silent delving, each time a return to the well.