* First Published in “Querencia Press” *
Shunyata
Crushed velvet sandstorms rustle up new beginnings,
In the windy disparities of time,
Whilst the land looks on, smiling the empty smile
Of nowhere. I alone observe it.
Its failings, its hope and its desires
To be anything it wanted to be
Aside from this clump of land.
The things in its own imagination.
Finally, I see it storm its way out of this dust
That can offer it nothing but the vapid
Consolations of sun-stoked horrors –
And a handful of pearls, stroked tender by the night.
It whispers its way out of existence and then –
It is gone –
And I alone left with it.
About the Author
Delilah Dennett is a writer and poet. In 2021, she graduated with a degree in English literature from Cambridge University, where she studied Native American and Asian American life writing. Dennett has previously been published in Rigorous Magazine, Varsity, The Cambridge Student, the Dial and Cambridge Notes, amongst other publications. She has also won the Arrol Adam’s Poetry Prize for her poem ‘Morecambe Shores’. You can follow her on Instagram at @delilahdennett.