Waiting for the man (with a van)

This week, poet and artist Frieda Hughes on packing up her latest artwork for her new exhibition

Packing Paintings

My paintings are disappearing into confinement.

My hours alive have coloured canvas and wood

In the shapes that nature made. I recorded

No human constructions that restrict my freedom,

Only rocks, crows, trees and landscapes

Painted from my way of looking,

My memory, my imagination.

And searing flashes of abstraction

That describe my moods in a way that little else can.

Each image seeded itself in joy, or misery,

Or the swirling weather patterns of difficulty

Around the calmer islands of my existence

That are rooted in the eddies of the world’s turbulence.

Mostly unseen, they are stacked breathless to wait

For the van and the gallery,

And the moment of their exposure that will spell out

‘I was here, and here, and here’.

My evidence of existence.

My sign of life.

My shout above the noise that deafens me.

Frieda Hughes will be exhibiting her work at the Chris Beetles Gallery, London SW1, from 13-18 October. Details: friedahughes.com