Tim Hetherington was killed yesterday in Libya, while covering the conflict for Panos in the city of Misrata. The award-winning photographer spent his career on the front line. It is a terrible loss.
I was going to bury it in my garden, but thought a dog would dig it up. In a cage it was sad and lonely; the slow red thump rattling the iron bars.
I was going to lock it in a castle tower, but feared a passing prince would storm the barricade. And in the sea it would only poison the fishes and float to shore once more.
So I kept it in my chest. Where neither I, nor it, would find any rest.
I’m grasping the air and wracked by sobs The voices are whispering to drop and follow them down It would be so easy To let my fingers rest, release, unfurl, like a balloon of cascading silk I’d float into the ocean.