Content Warning: death, dark themes
Janet Hatherley - British Museum—rooms 15, 17 and 20
To walk on Xanthos is to place your feet
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on the footsteps of three thousand years, soundless.
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To feel them in the air, the dust, a goat’s bleat,
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sudden streaks of the sun and then—yes—
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the dark rolling clouds over the mountains.
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It is to see in space, to put slowly
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your hand on the wall of a tomb, Lycian
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and be grounded. To see tombs, three,
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that have been dismantled, taken across seas,
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placed in rooms, closed in by low ceilings and walls,
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dimly lit, air conditioned—see that it is
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perfectly fitting, but they’re a puzzle
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not the real picture. And Xanthos in spirit
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like dust, falls through Charles Fellows’ sieve. Then exit.
Janet Hatherley lives in London and is a special needs teacher. She has poems published in several magazines and anthologies including The Interpreter’s House, Under the Radar, Stand, Coast to coast to coast, Brittle Star, Spelt, Green Ink, Dust and Feline Utopia. She was shortlisted in Coast to Coast to Coast’s portfolio competition, 2020.
Photograph: Another Life in Chania by Karin Hedetniemi
Karin Hedetniemi is a writer and street photographer from Vancouver Island, Canada, inspired by the natural world, and ordinary beauty in quiet places. Her photos appear in a variety of literary journals including Barren Magazine, Parentheses Journal; on the covers of The Bitchin Kitsch, Nightingale & Sparrow; and forthcoming on Pithead Chapel. Karin's other creative loves are nonfiction, haiku, and erasure poetry. Find her on Twitter/Instagram @karinhedet and at AGoldenHour.com.